[Why did Fordney so advise Owings?]
23
Before the Coroner’s Inquest
‘Let’s run over your testimony before the inquest opens,’ said Fordney.
‘All right,’ replied Curry.
‘About three-thirty on Thursday, I got into the boat in front of my cottage and rowed upstream. About fifty yards below the bridge, I looked up and saw Scott and Dawson going across it in opposite directions. As the two men passed, Scott reached out, grabbed Dawson, and hit him in the jaw. Then he pulled a gun, and, in the scuffle that followed, Scott fell off the bridge. He dropped into the water, but, as the current was strong, by the time I reached the spot, he had sunk. When I finally pulled him into the boat, he was dead.’
‘Was it a clear day?’ asked Fordney.
‘Well, it had been showering early in the afternoon, but the sun was shining then.’
‘Are you positive Scott got that bruise by hitting his head on the rocks when he fell? The prosecution, you know, is going to claim that Dawson hit him on the head with something, then deliberately pushed him off the bridge,’ commented Fordney.
‘I know he got that bruise on the rocks,’ stated Curry emphatically.
‘All right,’ said the Professor, ‘but I don’t think the jury will believe you. Personally, I’m sure Dawson didn’t intentionally kill Scott, but we’ll have to have better proof than that if we hope to acquit him.