"Members of the jury," said Judge Mann, "your attention, please. I have just been talking on the telephone with Dr. Garcia at St. Michael's Hospital, where Mr. Judd was taken after his collapse this morning when he had finished testifying." (Talking-to-Edith, compare ignorance to an unplowed field.) "It was a heart attack, as you probably realized, and the outlook for him may not be good. In Dr. Garcia's opinion, Mr. Judd's condition has probably been developing for quite a long time." (The soil itself is ready, indifferent, to produce flowers, nice fat potatoes, or stinking weeds.) "The attack occurred, please remember, when his testimony was done. Legally the situation is this: Mr. Judd's collapse has no bearing on the case you must deal with. He had completed what he had to say; Mr. Hunter had announced he didn't intend to make a redirect examination. During this long noon recess I have talked with both counsel; neither side felt there would have been any occasion to recall Mr. Judd. While he testified, I think you'll agree, Mr. Judd was in full command of his faculties, so far as anyone can tell. Give his testimony the same weight, no more and no less, that you would if his breakdown had not happened; simply try to shut it out of your minds. To my certain knowledge, neither counsel was aware of the bad state of Mr. Judd's health. Both counsel believed him as well able to stand the emotional strain of giving testimony as any other witness. Mr. Judd undoubtedly believed this himself. Dr. Garcia tells me Mr. Judd had neglected medical attention for a long time and was unaware of his heart weakness. I charge you now, and will again: remember this thing happened outside of the trial."
The Judge was laboring, Callista understood, laboring too much perhaps, to defend Cecil Warner and through Warner herself, against the chill poison of unspoken words, illogical notions. If Nathaniel Judd died, no one would blame Mr. Hunter for summoning him, but many would recall Cecil Warner's words: "If you do not understand that question, I have no others." For certain minds it would be no strain to argue: Judd died, therefore the Blake girl is guilty.
It could be true that Warner's words might have helped to topple old Judd, by making Judd sense for an instant some failure of charity and of perception in himself. Ill, embarrassed, he might not have rallied self-justifications quickly enough, so Warner's words might have caused a brief stab of conscience, enough to send him over the edge. But if he dies the chief fault is mine. I am guilty. To live is to destroy—true or false? I am small; my only real quarrel with Hunter is that if he has his way I shall never grow. How stubborn the life that can't desire to die!
Last August she had desired it, or thought she had, until a moment of that Saturday night, on the stairs, her mother weeping in a room left behind, her mind visited strangely by Victoria's grandchild the Funny Thing. She had begun to desire death earlier—in July, after Jim's letter, the only one he ever wrote. Stilted, timid; needless doubletalk; the awkwardness and misspelled words not endearing or funny but rather shocking, evidence of the blindness of her love.
I will not say part of me died when I read that dismal thing. We die and regenerate with every breath. All that happened (I-would-say-to-Edith) was that my journey had taken me beyond the region where I met Jimmy and learned some aspects (not all) of a passion called love.
Notice also (am-I-still-talking-to-Edith?) how the laughing-crying devil-angel that Jimmy woke up in me has not died, but rouses me even in the prison night, stinking bare-light-bulb night, starved for the pressure, the almost-anger, furious crescendo, meteoric release. Oh, in an enlightened society I could have been a splendid high-class whore!
"You may call your next witness, Mr. Hunter."
"Sergeant Lloyd Rankin!"
Callista heard Cecil Warner's short involuntary sigh, felt his hostile stiffening and alertness. Detective Sergeant Lloyd Rankin of the Winchester Police came down the aisle and held up a flat hand for the oath, the slab-faced sober man. His gray hair under the cold light glinted like dull steel, his eyes a lighter gray but opaque, oyster gray. Draw him as a bulldozer—Cecil might like it. She ran her fingers softly over the wrinkled hand, lifted away the idle pencil and drew his scratch pad toward her.