III
He met the flat patient stare of Sergeant Lloyd Rankin, which indicated a readiness like that of a dog who will not attack unless provoked. Say a Boxer: Rankin was built like that, and would fight in a Boxer's style, with single-minded courage closely akin to stupidity.
He saw T. J. Hunter seated at the prosecution's table and turned partly away from the witness chair, making a show of rereading that transcript of Callista's ordeal. T.J. would be listening to the cross-examination, and sharply; but Cecil Warner had to admit that the show of bored indifference was quite as expert as anything he could have managed himself. This silence had lasted long enough, or too long; he heard fidgeting in the back rows; he could not spend any more time gloomily viewing Rankin's Boxer jaws.
"Sergeant Rankin, when Miss Blake realized she would be under suspicion, you asked her—I think these were your words—you asked her who she thought would believe a story like hers. Correct?—that's your recollection of what you said?"
"Yes, sir, I think I put it that way."
"Meaning, I suppose, that you didn't believe her story yourself?"
"No, sir—I mean no, I didn't believe it."
"Did you suggest that she ought to change her story?"
"Oh, I told her—more than once, I guess—that she ought to tell the truth about it, that she'd get a better break if she did."
"A better break. Those were your words, 'a better break'?"
He noticed a dim flush on Rankin's heavy cheeks, some flicker of doubt or uneasiness in chilly gray eyes. Rankin could have no way of knowing how much Callista might have told. "Yes, I think that was how I put it, Mr. Warner. She seemed to be expecting me to believe it, and—"
"But she replied: 'Who knows what anyone believes?'"
"Yes."
"And asked then if you were going to arrest her?"
"She did, and I told her that would be up to my superiors, not me."
"This conversation took place in the kitchenette, after she had taken you out there and shown you the brandy bottle, and volunteered her account which you preferred not to believe?"
"It wasn't a case of preference, Mr. Warner. I—"
"All right, never mind that. The conversation took place in the kitchenette?"
"Yes."
"And you told her to go back to the living-room, and she did so?"
"Yes."
"She went ahead of you?"
"Ahead of me?"
"My words are plain, aren't they?" Give him no time—Boxer hates to be pushed. "She stepped out of the kitchenette and walked ahead of you down that little hallway toward the living-room, did she not?"
"Really I don't remember. I suppose—"
"Don't remember! In direct examination you showed an excellent memory for details. Let me just check your memory a little. What way does the front of that apartment house face, 21 Covent Street? East?"
"Why—yes, east, or south-east anyway."
"Was it a bright day, August 17th?"
"Yes, bright sunny day."
"Hot?"
"Very hot."
"Sunlight in the living-room windows, was there? Remember?"
"Yes."
"In the hallway?"
"I guess so."
"Good memory. Let me check it just a little more. What was Miss Blake wearing that day?"
"A—oh, just a dress, I don't know what a dressmaker would call it."
"Well—color?"
"White."
"Good. A simple white dress. Now look, Sergeant, I think you can remember whether she went ahead of you into the living-room. I'll help you out—you wouldn't have left her alone with that brandy bottle when you'd as good as told her she was under suspicion, would you?"
"Oh—well, that. Yes, if it matters, I remember she went first."
"Did you again tell her she ought to change her story?"
"I may have."
"Sergeant, I point out to you again, your memory under direct examination was excellent. You referred to your notebook, you repeated several remarks verbatim—to some of which the defense might have justifiably objected, if I had seen fit. Now—did you tell her a second time that she would get a better break if she changed this story which you say you didn't believe? Did you, Sergeant?"
"Yes, it's my recollection that I did."
"Did you suggest any other thing she might do that would, in your words, give her a better break?"
"Any other—I don't know what you mean."
"Then let me help your memory again. This conversation, when you repeated that she ought to change her story—did this conversation take place while you were going back to the living-room?"
"I—oh, I guess so."
"I'm asking for testimony, not guesswork. Did it, or not?"
"Yes."
"What did Miss Blake say?"
"It's my recollection that she—I don't think she said anything."
"She didn't? You remember how she looked, don't you?"
"Of course."
"Of course. Simple white dress, you said—correct?"
"Yes."
"Walking down the hall, between you and the sunlight in the living-room. Didn't she say, or rather cry out: 'Take your ugly hands off me, you fool!'—have you forgotten that?"
He heard Hunter jump up, and waited motionless for the angry blast: "Objection! This is outrageous. There has been nothing—"
Judge Terence Mann said: "There has been a good deal." Warner looked up quickly then; if his astonishment showed for a second, probably no one but Terence saw it. There was time to wonder how much of a surprise it was to T.J.—complete, very likely. And Terence Mann himself looked astonished at the swiftness and sharpness of his own words. "If there is any suspicion that a police officer has acted in that manner toward the defendant, the defense is well within its rights to pursue this line of questioning. The objection is overruled." But Terry must know we can't prove it. "Answer the question, Sergeant."
Staring at the Judge, T. J. Hunter said slowly: "Exception."
"Answer the question, Sergeant Rankin."
Rankin too had gone quiet, no visible motion in him except a rhythmic twitch at the corners of his Boxer jaws. "Will you repeat the question, Counselor?"
"I will. I ask whether Callista Blake said to you: 'Take your ugly hands off me, you fool!'"
"She did not."
"I quote to you these words: 'Look, I can give you a lot of breaks if you'll put out.' Did you say that to Callista Blake?"
"Objection."
"Overruled."
"I did not."
"You have no recollection of that?"
"It didn't happen, that's all. I never touched her."
"No? You didn't, a few minutes later, strike her across the face with the flat of your hand?"
"Objection!"
"Overruled."
"I certainly did not. The whole thing is imaginary."
"Did Callista Blake, while you had hold of her, tell you that she was ill, that she had had a miscarriage the night before?"
"Objection!"
"Overruled." So Terry sticks his own neck way out, his own feelings involved, his judgment slipping, and where does that take us?
"Exception."
"She did not tell me that, Counselor. She had no occasion to tell me that. I say again, the whole thing is imaginary. I know my duties, and my position as a police officer. Nothing like that happened, and if the defendant says it did, she is lying." Except for that twitch, and the high tension of his blocky hands gripping the witness chair, nothing in Rankin's solid front suggested he might himself be lying.
"You say the whole thing is imaginary. Really! Is it imaginary, just a bad dream cooked up by the defense—what do you take us for, Sergeant?—is it imaginary that you shoved Callista Blake down on the couch in the living-room, that she then told you she was ill, that in spite of that you went on trying to force her, that you exposed yourself, that she then said a certain thing which frightened you, so that you let her go, after first striking her across the face with the flat of your hand?"
"Objection of course. Whole question improper and fantastic."
"Overruled."
Terry, I don't know—
"Exception."
"Nothing like that happened. I deny it absolutely."
"In that view of it, I won't question you further about this, or anything else, I think, since the only thing of service to my client is the truth. I dare say, in redirect examination, you'll have opportunity to repeat your virtuous denials—"
"That's outrageous."
Warner swung around. "Something else is outrageous—"
"Mr. Warner!" But that was Terry, and he must listen. "We cannot have this. Please control yourself."
"I am sorry, your Honor. My apologies to the Court, and to Mr. Hunter—who, I am sure, knew nothing about any improper conduct on the part of his witness. That's all."
Warner sat down, with a sudden breaking out of sweat on his face, a dizziness and blurring of vision. Callista's hand slipped over his, easing his fingers out of their involuntary clench. She was repeating his name softly: "Cecil—Cecil—are you all right?"
"Yes." He covered his mouth to speak to her. "I couldn't break him. I thought I could break the bastard."
"Never mind. Relax. You bent him, but good."
"Not enough. You'll have to take the stand, maybe."
"But I must anyway. Relax."
Concerned for me. He noticed the courtroom was quiet, Hunter delaying. Judge Mann's gaze was on him too, worried and speculative. Do they think I'm going to fold like Judd? Judd—I said to that man Judd: 'If you do not understand that question—' He wiped his forehead. Maybe Callista had helped him get that handkerchief out of his pocket. He would not fold. Let them take their eyes off him. Let them get on with it.
Hunter was getting on with it—neutrally it seemed. "Sergeant Rankin, I'll merely ask you: is there any foundation in fact, anything at all, to support this suggestion of misconduct on your part with the defendant Callista Blake?"
"None whatever, sir. None whatever."
Hunter was pausing another long time. Warner now helplessly understood that he was giving Rankin time to think, time for the man's rather slow wits to come up with the obvious countercharge. Hunter said at last: "In summary, then, you simply questioned Miss Blake about the story she had told you, you took charge of the brandy bottle and so on, you called Chief Gage, and then there was this episode of the fish-tank—when Miss Blake, you say, was composed, sort of philosophical and all that, hardly the way a girl would act, I guess, if she'd just been threatened and pushed around. That's a correct summary?"
"Yes, sir, I think that about sums it up. Well—" It was comic enough, to observe the slow grimace as Rankin caught on to what Hunter would like him to say.
Hunter asked mildly: "Something you wish to add?"
"Well—I guess not. Of course I'm very much surprised that the defense should see fit to make a charge like that against me, but there seems to be no way of proving anything—Miss Blake's word against mine—and if I say anything about—about her own conduct in that respect, it's the same situation, so I would rather ignore it, let it go."
Warner sickened inwardly with self-blame. I underestimated the brains in the son of a bitch—no, hardly even that, for a cub lawyer should have seen it coming, the obvious countercharge by innuendo. Rankin had done it cleverly, though; he could hardly have said anything better calculated to make Callista seem a whore. I should sell apples on a streetcorner.
A sober workman driving in finishing nails, T. J. Hunter said: "I understand your reluctance, Sergeant, and I think we might as well leave it at that. Recross, Mr. Warner?"
Cecil Warner remembered how, long ago, on childhood occasions when he had been goaded into fighting, he had often been struck by a crying spell in the midst of battle. It had become a sort of distinction: "Cecil's all right till he goes to bawling—then watch out!" It would not happen now. But he knew his voice was shouting, too loudly, and cracking absurdly in the shout: "Are you being humorous, Mr. District Attorney? I am concerned with establishing the truth, and questioning that man will not serve any such purpose."
Judge Mann started to speak but checked himself, watching Sergeant Rankin step down and stride away. Terry will not look at me. Take my hand, Callista. Hardly wondering at the coincidence, he felt the cool pressure of her fingers renewed. I shall not survive the conclusion, win or lose, but that hardly matters, Old Man—
"If it please the Court, the prosecution is ready to read the transcript of the interrogation of Callista Blake on August 17th, which has been admitted in evidence and which I have here."
Judge Mann said drily: "It will be read by the clerk of court."
Something accomplished anyway, in that side-bar huddle before Rankin's cross-examination: the transcript would not be read with baritone sound effects. Hunter passed the pages to Mr. Delehanty with good enough grace, having no choice. To the hearers, Warner knew, much of it would be dull, a repetition of what had already been said. A welcome dullness, allowing time to rest. Mr. Delehanty would begin smartly, then fall to droning as the question-and-answer rhythm caught hold of him. The duller the better. Keep my hand, Callista.
Cecil Warner drifted into bewilderment, a sense that at some point there had been an illogical reversal of roles. Must he draw on the strength of this girl who in a few months might be butchered by the State, as if there remained in him no power at all, not even the power of wisdom? As if it were natural, and right, that in her danger and misery, in her green youth too, it should be Callista who possessed a power to heal and save? The defense never rests, but—
Can anyone save another? Maybe, with good fortune.
Or help another? The heart says yes. Keep my hand, Callista.
He came alert with a frightened start. Mr. Delehanty's voice had already sagged into a singsong monotony, and might have been burbling on a long time.
QUESTION (by Mr. Lamson): Can anyone support your statement that you were experiencing what you call a suicidal depression for a month or more, from early July to the middle of August?
ANSWER: No, I never spoke of it to anyone.
Why not to me? I might have—
Near his eyes, Callista's face took on a momentary immensity, like a great image on a softly brilliant screen. She must have had her teeth clamped a while on her underlip. It looked swollen as though from a bout of love.
QUESTION: Was anyone aware of your taking those monkshood roots?
ANSWER: No one.
QUESTION: Not even James Doherty?
ANSWER: I have had no communication with James Doherty since receiving that letter of his you took from my desk. In that time I've seen him only once—at the picnic when I got the monkshood. I didn't talk with him then, he did not talk with me, he knew nothing of what I was doing.
"You'll come to see me tonight, Cecil?"
"Yes."
"Something I must tell you."
"What, dear?"
"Not now. Tonight."
QUESTION: You had these roots, this poison, a week ago Friday. What about the suicidal depression?—change your mind?
ANSWER: I don't know how the mind works.
QUESTION: Now, Miss Blake! Anybody knows if he's changed his mind.
ANSWER: Does he?
QUESTION: All right. I can assume you gave up the notion of suicide?
ANSWER: Not a notion. An uncompleted decision, perhaps. Which did lose its importance after a while.
QUESTION: Did you, or you and James Doherty acting together, intend that poison for Mrs. Doherty?
ANSWER: Must I answer that again? James Doherty knew nothing about any poison, or my possession of it. I intended it only for myself.
QUESTION: But kept it there more than a week, where I suppose anyone might have stumbled on it?
ANSWER: Not exactly. Back of a shelf. Nobody visiting me was likely to go get a drink from a back shelf without invitation.
QUESTION: But you say that's just what Mrs. Doherty did.
ANSWER: Why, I think her idea was to get the drink for me. Then I guess she understood I'd locked myself into the bedroom. With the drink in her hand, and upset by what I'd been saying, I suppose she just tossed it off, maybe not even knowing she did. It would be natural.
QUESTION: Didn't she knock? Call to you? Try the door?
ANSWER: I don't know, Mr. Lamson.
QUESTION: Don't know. I can't accept that.
ANSWER: It's the truth, and all I can say. Partial amnesia.
QUESTION: Do you have any idea how many professional criminals try that amnesia thing? Everything went black—yeah. You're not a professional criminal, you're a very intelligent girl. How do you think that amnesia stuff is going to sound in court?
ANSWER: Bad.
QUESTION: Well? Don't you care?
ANSWER: I can't invent for you. I don't know. I can't remember.
QUESTION: All right. Mrs. Doherty was upset by what you'd been saying. What had you been saying?
ANSWER: I told her about my affair with her husband.
QUESTION: Just like that?
ANSWER: Yes. I think I was very stupid. I hoped to persuade her to allow a separation. I knew her church doesn't allow divorce, but I thought she might permit us that much. I wanted my baby to have a father, married or not. It's bad, trying to grow up without a father. Mine died when I was seven. I wanted mine to have a father.
QUESTION: Yes, that was in the letter you wrote him.
ANSWER: Wrote but never mailed. I should have destroyed it.
QUESTION: Why didn't you mail it?
ANSWER: I'm not sure I can explain that. An obsession is a strange thing, and so is suicidal depression—and so's pregnancy. You don't just sit quiet and work out the mathematics. Your mind shifts and struggles like a thing in a web, tries to decide what matters most. The answers don't always stay the same. The day after I started that letter, I didn't go on with it because then I didn't even want Jimmy to know I was pregnant. I saw it wouldn't work out even if he were entirely free. Too different. We couldn't possibly have lived together. Then later I was trying again to think it might work—and so on.
QUESTION: Go on, please.
ANSWER: How? Mr. Lamson, I know ten million more things about myself than you ever could, but you're asking me to explain things that even I don't know. How can I? Well, the night before Ann came to see me, Saturday, I had a time when everything looked possible. I wanted to have the baby, I was almost happy, I wasn't thinking of suicide—I even forgot about that poison. Next day, Sunday, I was imagining again that Ann might permit a separation so that he could be with me. Crazy, but that's how I had it lined up that day, that's why I telephoned her, that's how it looked right up until I began to talk with her. Then—card-house fell down.
QUESTION: You told her you were pregnant?
ANSWER: No, I didn't even get that far. I saw it was no use, waste of time. We had not enough words in common.
QUESTION: Not enough words?
ANSWER: Oh—oh—whatever I said meant something else in her mind, the way everything I say now means something else to you, heaven knows what. No such thing as a common language. We all talk in the dark. If a bit of light breaks we're frightened and try to blot it out.
QUESTION: I don't follow you.
ANSWER: Don't try. I'm not going your way.
QUESTION: This isn't an occasion for humor, is it?
ANSWER: People will tell you I laugh at the damnedest things.
QUESTION: If you didn't say you were pregnant, how much did you say?
ANSWER: All she understood was that we'd had an affair.
QUESTION: Did you quarrel?
ANSWER: No.
QUESTION: She wasn't angry?
ANSWER: No, very forgiving. That's when I was sick to my stomach.
QUESTION: Really, Miss Blake! Are you saying—
ANSWER: I don't know what I'm saying any more.
QUESTION: Yes, I realize you're having a bad time. I'm not intentionally cruel, it's merely my job to enforce the laws of this community. Naturally your pregnancy entitles you to every consideration, but—
ANSWER: Mr. Lamson, didn't I say I was pregnant? I had a miscarriage last night.
QUESTION: Oh. I'm sorry, I don't think you did tell us that. When did it happen?
ANSWER: Out there, after I'd found her in the pond.
QUESTION: A result of shock, or—exertion?
ANSWER: Shock maybe. Is this the fourth time I've told you I didn't push her in the water? I found her, I knew she was dead, I came away.
QUESTION: The miscarriage—I'm sorry, but I must ask—
ANSWER: Why, frankly, Mr. Lamson, it hurts.
QUESTION: You know very well that's not what I meant. Where exactly were you when it happened?
ANSWER: First pain, there by the pond. I went back to my car because I thought I might be able to drive home somehow—
QUESTION: You mean to your mother's house?
ANSWER: I do not, I mean my apartment. But it was getting worse, and at the junction I did turn that way on Walton, because I remembered the woods across the road. I left the car by the pines, and got over there, into the woods. It was over pretty soon.
QUESTION: You must have a good deal of courage, Miss Blake.
ANSWER: Enough, I hope.
QUESTION: I hope so too. By the way, Miss Blake, you might glance at this folder, if you will.
"That's where he flashed the morgue pictures at you, Cal?"
"Uh-huh. I was a—what's the term?—a cool customer. Oh yes—he's reading my intelligent comments now. Not bad for a beginner, don't you think? Like Lizzie Borden."
"Hush, dear."
"Well, Lizzie was a beginner too. What's more she had to operate on a breakfast of mutton broth."
Cecil Warner could wonder then whether it had been Callista's wry and thorny humor that saved her during the moments last August—there must have been such moments—when she had drawn that dark bottle forward on the shelf and perhaps set out a single glass.