Spider Webs

I The Judge

“All rise. Superior Court of the state of California, in and for the county of Santa Felicia, is now in session, Judge George Hazeltine presiding.”

Hazeltine, a tall, spare man in his sixties, moved arthritically toward the bench, trailing his black robe and a strong smell of garlic.

Each morning after breakfast he chewed a clove of garlic, partly for health reasons, partly to help safeguard his privacy. People were not as keen on bothering him with their twaddle if they had to endure a certain amount of nasal discomfort. Attorneys kept their distance, and lesser personnel either spoke from the doorway or didn’t appear at all.

In a rather obvious counterattack his secretary wore a great deal of perfume, most of which, ironically, had been given to her by the judge himself at Christmas, on her birthday and during National Secretaries’ Week. She kept little balls of cotton saturated with perfume tucked into pockets and bras and pinned to the undersides of collars and hems of skirts. Sometimes one of these cotton balls would fall out, and the judge would pick it up and smell it and think: That’s very nice. I have excellent taste in scent.

The judge sat down, cleared his throat and consulted the typewritten page on the lectern in front of him.

“Let the record show that the defendant is present along with his counsel, Mr. Donnelly, and the counsel for the people is present, Mr. Owen, the District Attorney. Let the record also show that the twelve members of the jury are present as well as the six alternates.

“Bailiff, would you kindly pass out the jurors’ badges? These badges will be worn throughout this trial in order to identify the members of the jury and to warn other people to stay away from them and not to converse with them at any time on any topic.”

The badges marked JUROR were handed out by the bailiff and the jurors pinned them to their left shoulders. With the badges in place they looked like oddly assorted delegates to a very solemn convention, environmental activists, perhaps, or anti-abortionists hell-bent on saving the world.

The youngest juror, a carpenter’s apprentice barely twenty-one, brought his motorcycle helmet into court and kept it under his seat. The oldest was a seventy-year-old housewife with a reconstructed face and hair dyed black but turning obstinately orange.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard the clerk read the information, the charges against the defendant, Cully Paul King, being murder and murder for profit to which charges the defendant has pleaded not guilty. It is now time for counsel to make opening statements. I must caution you that anything said in these opening statements is not to be regarded as evidence. Counsel may give you a synopsis of his case and tell you what he expects to prove. Before reaching any conclusions, you must wait until he actually proves it.”

The judge paused. He disapproved of the business of opening statements and the mandatory speech he had to make preceding them. It amounted to telling the jurors they were about to hear a lot of bullshit which they were then obliged to ignore. If the jury was to disregard opening statements as evidence, why bother with them at all?

The system did no credit to the lawyers themselves or to the law, and it was apt to befuddle the jurors and cause them to distrust any statement made by anyone during the course of the trial. It was a poor way to begin a case, forcing the jurors to listen to a whole day or more of oratory which they must then forget they heard.

Utter nonsense. No wonder the judicial system was bogged down.

“The opening statement belongs to the people,” he said. “Are you ready, Mr. Owen?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Proceed.”

The district attorney, Oliver Owen, rose and took his place at the lectern, facing the judge with the jury box on his right. He tested the speaker, which squawked in protest, adjusted it to his height, glanced at his notes and then fixed his eyes on the jury.

He was a good-looking blond man in his forties, and he spoke in a loud, almost belligerent voice as if he were already in the middle of an argument before the case even began.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the court, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I bid you good morning.

“This is a simple case. I’m sure every attempt will be made to give it twists and turns, to confuse the issue by setting up detours. But the fact is, the road ahead is straight and direct, and it leads to one man and one man only, Cully Paul King.

“We, representing the state of California, county of Santa Felicia, intend to prove that Madeline Ruth Pherson, a married woman, met her death at the hands of Cully Paul King.

“Mrs. Pherson, wife of Tyler Pherson, resided in Bakersfield, California. She was forty years of age and in reasonably good health. A recent death in the family left her somewhat depressed, so her husband advised her to spend a week or two on the coast.

“On the morning of May the first she arrived at San Diego’s Playa Airport and took a taxi to Casa Mañana. She was carrying with her two pieces of luggage, consisting of a large suitcase equipped with wheels and a matching one half the size known as a weekender. She also carried a smaller case made of embossed green leather measuring approximately eight by twelve by three inches. She checked into a hotel at Marina del Playa, occupying the suite previously reserved for her by her husband.

“The two larger pieces of luggage were taken up to her suite, but the green leather one was placed in the hotel vault by the assistant manager, Mr. Elfinstone, at Mrs. Pherson’s request. The case had a double lock and weighed about four to five pounds. Because of the double lock and Mrs. Pherson’s request for vault space, Mr. Elfinstone, assistant manager of the hotel, assumed the case contained something of considerable value.

“From her room Mrs. Pherson telephoned her husband to tell him she had arrived safely and was going down to the lobby to people-watch. She seemed in good spirits and said she might even go into the bar and order a drink. The evidence will show that’s exactly what she did.

“It was a fateful decision.

“She was seen at the bar talking to a black man in a navy blue blazer and skipper’s cap; the evidence will show that the man was Cully Paul King, the defendant.

“They talked for some time. Then both parties got up and left the bar, King going into the lobby and Mrs. Pherson to the desk, where she asked for the green case, offering no explanation for her change of mind.

“Carrying the case and a handbag, she went up to her suite and returned shortly afterward to join King in the lobby. Then the two went out together. She was wearing a blue and white striped coat. She did not check out of the hotel, and her clothes were later found carefully hung up in the closet of her suite, her shoes in plastic bags and purses wrapped in tissue paper. She was a meticulous woman. When she put a garment on a hanger, she was careful to button or zip it to keep its shape.

“She was next seen boarding the yacht Bewitched in the company of Mr. King. The crew, Harry Arnold and his teenaged son, Richie, saw her come aboard, carrying the case and wearing the blue and white coat described by Mr. Elfinstone.

“Her gait was unsteady, and Mr. Arnold assumed she’d been drinking. She retired to the captain’s quarters with Mr. King.

“During the day the boat had been cleared by customs and taken on fuel and provisions. It cast off before dawn en route to Santa Felicia. After reaching the open sea, the boat was put on automatic pilot and Harry Arnold went below to sleep. He was scheduled to take the night watch, a necessary precaution in busy shipping lanes where there is often night fog.

“While Harry slept, Cully King and Richie Arnold did the necessary work around the Bewitched, including the cooking. Mrs. Pherson did not appear in the galley although she was ostensibly taken on as cook.

“The evidence will show that Harry Arnold came on night watch as scheduled. During the course of it he heard a loud quarrel taking place in Cully King’s quarters. He was not unduly alarmed since he assumed Mrs. Pherson’s presence on board was for other than culinary purposes.

“Early the next morning Cully directed the berthing of the boat in its usual place in Marina Five. When he appeared on deck, he was not wearing work clothes but was dressed for going ashore in his navy blue blazer and gray slacks. Holding a folded handkerchief against his left cheek, he told Harry that he had a toothache and needed to see a dentist right away.

“When a yacht like the Bewitched returns to its home port, it is customary for the skipper to pay a courtesy call on the harbormaster and exchange information. This was not done. Cully began walking quickly toward State Street.

“Harry Arnold made breakfast for Richie and himself and Mrs. Pherson. When she didn’t appear, he assumed she was still sleeping after an active night.

“When the galley was cleaned up, Harry and his son began going over the rest of the boat, beginning with the cabin occupied by Cully King and Mrs. Pherson. Mrs. Pherson was not sleeping, as Harry had assumed, sleeping off an active night. She was not there. Moreover, there was no sign that she had ever been there, no lipstick stains on the pillowcases, no damp towels, no hair combings in the bristles of the silver brush engraved ‘Bewitched,’ no used tissues in the wastebasket. Although the bed was freshly made, the laundry hamper was empty.

“Harry Arnold began to doubt his own senses. Had he really seen a woman come aboard the Bewitched the previous afternoon? Yes, and one thing stuck in his mind to prove it: The blue and white striped coat she’d been wearing matched one of the spinnakers belonging to the Bewitched. He could never forget that. And it brought to mind other items that reinforced the memory: a green case the woman had been carrying and the diamond stud earrings she wore. Now there was no trace of anything.

“Mrs. Pherson, with her spinnaker coat and green case, had vanished.

“Meanwhile, where was Cully King and what was he doing? The evidence will show that he was in a pawnshop on lower State Street, attempting to make a deal with the owner on a pair of diamond stud earrings. These earrings belonged to Mrs. Pherson, as her husband will testify, and she was wearing them when she went on board the Bewitched.

“Mr. King initially asked seven hundred dollars for the earrings but settled for five hundred. His story was that being a stranger in town, he was unable to get credit, and he needed the cash to pay a dentist. He appeared to be in pain, grimacing and holding a handkerchief against his left cheek, indicating that a molar was the source of trouble. Evidence that this was all playacting will be provided by the dentist who services the prisoners at the county jail. All of Cully King’s teeth are in excellent condition.

“We don’t know where Mr. King spent the next four days. A lot can happen in four days. A woman’s body can be fished out of the water, and minor scratches on human skin can heal to the point where they are hardly noticeable. Now, I’m sure that counsel for the defense will bring to your attention my use of the adjective ‘minor.’ ”

Donnelly stood up, a tall, brittle man with granite gray hair. He had none of the nervous mannerisms of most of the other people in the courtroom. He didn’t scratch, twitch, frown, cross his arms, shift his weight from one foot to another. Something seemed to have frozen the moving parts of his body.

He sounded bored. “I didn’t realize it was incumbent upon the district attorney to read minds.”

“Are you objecting, Mr. Donnelly?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“Then say so for the record.”

“I object to Mr. Owen’s attempt to read my mind, on the following grounds—”

“Oh, don’t take it so seriously, Mr. Donnelly. The jury has been warned in advance that what you gentlemen say in your opening statements may be nothing more than rhetorical claptrap... Please continue, Mr. Owen.”

“It’s very difficult to recall the exact place where I was so rudely interrupted.”

“Scratches,” the judge said. “Scratches on the defendant’s face that would heal fast because they were minor.”

“Thank you, Your Honor... Now, why were they minor? Because they were inflicted by a woman who was weakened in a struggle for her life, trying to loosen the vicious hold those hands held on her throat. A deadly hold indeed. Does Your Honor consider this just so much rhetorical claptrap?”

Ho hum & lordy, lordy. The judge sat in silence, his chin resting on his locked hands, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as if they were expecting the arrival of something interesting, a bit of weather, an earthquake, a skyquake.

The silent treatment was a new ploy on the part of the judge, and it enraged the district attorney. To regain his composure, he went over to the cooler and poured himself a paper cup of water. It was hardly more than a mouthful and it didn’t help much. The old bastard’s trying to make a fool of me, and Donnelly’s gloating over it, eating it up.

The three men were now so intent on each other that the other people in the room seemed to be forgotten, the jury, the court reporter, clerk and bailiff, even the defendant, Cully King. He seemed irrelevant, like a spectator at a boxing match which needed only two contestants and a referee.

Cully Paul King. Nobody knew him; nobody cared about him. He was a black man from the other side of the continent.

The judge stirred inside his black robe, which was turning green with age. He was anxious to retire, rid himself of this robe like an old crow molting its worn-out feathers.

“Whose turn is it?” he said suddenly.

“I had asked a question,” Owen said testily, “and was waiting for a reply.”

“Who was supposed to reply?”

“You were.”

“And I shall. Yes, indeed, I shall.”

Eva Foster, the court clerk, leaned toward the bailiff, who was sitting at the same table. “He’s been tippling again. Lock up the booze.”

“Waste of time,” the bailiff said. “He’s got keys hidden all over the place.”

“You’re supposed to be a cop. Find them.”

“I shall answer,” the judge repeated. “Now, what was the question, Mr. Owen?”

“It has lost its relevancy by this time.”

“Too bad, yes, indeed, a pity.” The judge sounded like a man ready to face even more dire adversities with good cheer. “Let’s go on to something else.”

He took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and looked down at the defendant as if he’d just been brought in to meet the jury. “Do you have anything to say?”

“I don’t think so. Nobody’s asked me anything yet.”

“I’m sure someone will.”

“Yes, sir.”

“In fact, I’ll start the ball rolling myself.”

The court reporter, Mildred Noon, lifted her hands from the stenotype machine and pushed her chair as close to the judge’s bench as possible. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Your Honor. Why don’t we allow the district attorney to finish his opening statement?”

“We, Mildred? We?”

“Us.”

“Us. That’s better. Very well.” He glanced briefly at the district attorney. “You may proceed, Mr. Owen.”

“It’s almost impossible to proceed after this kind of interruption.”

“Do your best, Mr. Owen. I’m sure words will occur to you. They always do.”

The defendant sat quietly in his chair beside Donnelly. Only the pupils of his eyes seemed to move, brown and shiny like melting chocolate. His skin was as light as copper, a color rare and much admired in the islands he called his own.

In his thirty-seven years Cully had been in quite a few courtrooms around the Caribbean: in his own island of St. John, one in the Bahamas and another in Puerto Rico that was so small the entire courthouse and jail could have fitted into this one room. Its shoebox dimensions, the heat and humidity and the noise of everyone talking at once had a tendency to quicken the judicial process. A case rarely lasted more than a day or two. Somebody usually landed in jail. Whether it was the right one or not hardly mattered since jail was the back room of the warden’s house and the warden’s wife was a very good cook and had a liberal outlook on life. She liked to play Monopoly but was a sore loser. When she ended up after a week of play owing Cully $349, Cully found himself abruptly released and sent back to his ship with $1.29 and the final comment from the warden’s wife that that was all he deserved because he probably cheated.

“You may proceed, Mr. Owen,” the judge said.

“Yes, Your Honor... Harry Arnold and his son, Richie, remained on board the Bewitched, partly to keep it shipshape for the arrival of the owner, Mr. Belasco, who was in Palm Springs with his sick father, and partly because they didn’t know what else to do. They were not in the habit of issuing orders but of obeying them. In the absence of any order to obey, they stayed put.

“Richie body-surfed off the sandspit, and Harry spent considerable time talking to the fishermen on the commercial wharf. But he was getting more and more anxious about the continued absence of Cully King and Mrs. Pherson. Then, on the night of May fifth, Harry learned from the local radio news that the nude body of a woman had been found caught in a kelp bed. The body was extricated and brought to shore by one of the boats servicing the oil drilling platforms. We can assume that Cully King heard the same local news, for he appeared at the Bewitched about the same time as the police. Later in the evening Mr. Belasco also arrived from Palm Springs, and it was he who suggested examining the ship’s log for any record of a woman being taken aboard the Bewitched at San Diego. There was none.

“When Cully King was questioned by the police, his answers were terse and guarded. Because of statements made by the two Arnolds, he was forced to admit that Mrs. Pherson had come on board ship, but he claimed to know nothing about what happened to her, and he refused to say anything further until he was represented by a lawyer.

“Before Mr. King even had a chance to call a lawyer, one appeared as if by magic just after King was booked.

“This was no ordinary lawyer, this Charles Donnelly. He was widely known not only for his defense of criminals but also for the rather substantial fees he charged for his services. No one can figure out why he is taking on this case since King has no money.”

Donnelly rose to face the judge. “My fees, Your Honor, are beyond the scope of this trial and beyond the scope of Mr. Owen’s knowledge. I must therefore object.”

Before ruling on the matter, Judge Hazeltine leaned back in his chair and studied the ceiling again for some time. He rather enjoyed making both counsel wait. It reminded them that though this was a small kingdom, it was his and his alone, and they were but peasants toiling in the fields.

“Objection sustained,” he said finally. “There is no need, Mr. Owen, to refer to Mr. Donnelly’s fees since he is not on trial here for overcharging. Kindly confine your remarks to more relevant matters.”

The district attorney protested. “I consider this matter relevant, Your Honor, in view of the fact that the defendant is not in a financial position to pay the kind of fee Mr. Donnelly charges.”

“Do you want to be found in contempt, Mr. Owen?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then proceed with more caution, as directed.”

The district attorney shook his head and continued. “A court order was issued for the Bewitched to remain in port and the crew to stay aboard. Several searches of the entire vessel were conducted by deputies, but no trace of Mrs. Pherson’s presence was found.

“A week later one of Mrs. Pherson’s garments was recovered from the sea, caught in a commercial fisherman’s net. It was the blue and white striped coat she had been wearing when she left the hotel. It will be offered in evidence, and you will see it for yourselves and observe the most significant thing about it. It is completely buttoned. And why is this significant? It shows that Mrs. Pherson was not wearing that coat when she went overboard. It wasn’t torn off her body by the action of waves or sea creatures. That coat, as it was taken out of the fisherman’s net, was buttoned. Mrs. Pherson, a fastidious woman, had a habit of buttoning or zipping a garment when she put it on a hanger in order to keep its shape. That coat was taken off a hanger and thrown into the sea. It is a reasonable assumption that her other possessions were also thrown overboard but have not been recovered. It is, I submit, more than a reasonable assumption. The man sitting in the defendant’s chair was seen doing just that.”

Lordy, lordy, the judge thought. Owen dearly loves the sound of his own voice. If tape recorders weren’t prohibited in court, he’d probably make a cassette of all this and play it for the family at dinner.

The judge had met Virginia Owen several times, a sharpeyed little bore like Oliver Owen. But even the most sensible woman will do something stupid now and then, and Virginia had not only married Owen but had presented him with three sons. The judge didn’t much like children, so he avoided them, especially those related to Owen. They were stuck with some pretty rotten genes.

Owen’s speech went on, sounding more like a closing argument than an opening statement, an oratorical performance rather than a synopsis of evidence to be presented later.

Charles Donnelly began to doodle on the blank yellow page in front of him, a barn with a crisscross wooden door drawn very quickly and without lifting the pencil from the paper. Then another barn and another, until there were three rows of them, as identical as tracings.

He had been doodling like this (the trick was not to lift the pencil) for so many years that he couldn’t remember who’d taught him the trick when he was a child. The matter was too trivial to think about, let alone worry, but he’d finally asked a psychiatrist about it. The psychiatrist suggested that Donnelly give up doodling by not carrying any paper or pencils.

Though Donnelly seemed to be intent on his next row of barns, he was in fact listening carefully to what Owen was saying. During the course of his speech he had gratuitously mentioned the word “black,” each time in a derogatory manner. Black man, white woman; evil, good; voodoo and black magic as opposed to common sense.

The trial had barely started when Owen’s bigotry became apparent. He seemed boxed in by his prejudices, and the box was getting more and more crowded with Mexicans, Jews, blacks, gays, Orientals, until there was hardly room for Owen to do his job properly. In at least one instance he had neglected his homework. Juror No. 7, a computer technician named Hudson, had a sister who’d been happily married to a black for years.

“Greed,” Owen said. “Mrs. Pherson came to a violent end because of a man’s greed. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, and in Mrs. Pherson’s case it was deadly indeed. Yes, and in Cully King’s case it may be deadly also. The profit motive makes this a murder with special circumstances. If the charge against a person is murder with special circumstances, that person is not entitled to bail and, if found guilty, must die in the gas chamber or spend the rest of his life in prison without possibility of parole. This indicates the gravity with which the state of California regards murder for profit. You, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, must do no less.

“So far we have no evidence to show how much profit was involved. The five hundred dollars the pawnbroker paid Cully King is only part of what King received or hoped to receive. More, probably much more is involved. According to Tyler Pherson, her husband, the green leather case contained heirloom jewelry bequeathed to his wife by her mother. The green case has not been found, perhaps never will be. Cully King might have thrown it overboard in a moment of panic after Mrs. Pherson’s death at the same time as he threw her other possessions overboard.

“Rhetorical claptrap? No, indeed. This is evidence that will be presented to you from the stand by Harry Arnold, who witnessed the damning scene.”

During the pause that followed this announcement, a long, loud sigh of disbelief crossed the room. It was impossible to tell where it came from, perhaps the counsel’s table or the court clerk’s or even the first row of spectators. But the judge strongly suspected it had come from Donnelly.

He turned his attention to Charles Donnelly. Here was a man who’d puzzled him from the time they first met. A queer duck, the judge thought, and glanced at the wall clock, then at his watch, and found a discrepancy of two minutes. He chose to believe the wall clock, which was two minutes later.

He said, “Have you almost finished, Mr. Owen?”

“I have finished, Your Honor.”

“Good. Court will recess for fifteen minutes. Jurors are admonished not to discuss the case with anyone else or among themselves.”

He leaned over and spoke to the court reporter in a whisper: “Did you hear me say the word ‘good,’ Mildred?”

“I wasn’t sure, sir. I thought you might be just clearing your throat.”

“Of course, I was just clearing my throat.”

Before removing the paper from the stenotype machine, Mildred deleted the word ‘good.’ She and the judge had had a long and close working relationship. Although she sometimes referred to him privately as Georgy Porgy, she called him sir to his face and had a genuine respect for his ability and common sense.

He should have remarried years ago, she thought, folding the long ribbon of stenotype paper over and over into a figure eight.

Eva Foster, the court clerk, noted the time of recess in her book. She had witnessed the whispered conference between the judge and Mildred and Mildred’s subsequent act of deletion.

After the jurors and spectators had left, she accosted Mildred at the door.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.

Mildred widened her eyes in an attempt to look surprised. “Done what?”

“Erased.”

“I was merely correcting a mistake.”

“Oh, bull,” Eva said. “The way you kowtow to that man disgusts me.”

“You disgust much too easily, dear. It’s hard on your arteries.”

“My arteries?”

“Disgust constricts the arteries and leads to fibrosis of the cerebellum and other complications I can’t think of at the moment.”

“You can’t think of them because they don’t exist. You’re making fun of me.”

“Have to,” Mildred said cheerfully. “I got sick of waiting for you to do it yourself.”

Eva walked away, not angry so much as disappointed that Mildred persisted in underestimating her own role as a woman, downgrading the importance of the female in today’s society.

Eva Foster had a pair of full, perfectly formed breasts, defiantly unrestrained. Everything else about her was long and thin and straight, her hair, her legs, her neck, her nose, her mouth, even her thought processes. Her mind could go from A to Z without a moment’s hesitation or the slightest acknowledgment that there was anything in between.

Nobody would have suspected what a wild fantasy life she led and what divergent figures appeared in it. There were clues, however: a certain expression on her face in unguarded moments; a moony smile now and then; a wardrobe that consumed most of her salary.

Halfway down the hall to the filing room she met Donnelly. He didn’t speak as they passed, and there wasn’t the slightest glint of recognition in his eyes. She wondered how he would react if she told him about the dream she’d had the previous night: They were in a railway station, and Donnelly was on the train as it began to move. She ran alongside it, and he reached down and swooped her up in his arms and whisked her away with him.

She woke up happy, and this, more than the dream itself, enraged her. She wasn’t swoopable or whiskable, and Donnelly lived on another planet and was married to a wealthy socialite (though unhappily, of course: Court scuttlebutt always had the married men unhappy and on the brink of ditching their wives for the love of a steno or file clerk).

“Screw you,” Eva said under her breath. “You’re a nasty cold fish. Stay out of my railway station.”

The judge retired to his chambers and, as his doctor had instructed him to do, lay down on the brown leather couch. They had grown old together, couch and man. Both bore the scars of time, mysterious sags and bulges. One cushion of the couch was covered with scratches made by the paws of the little dachshund he used to bring to the office every day after his wife died.

When the dachshund was no longer able to jump up on the couch by herself, the judge lifted her up, and she would lie there all day with a break at noon, not caring very much where she was as long as it was with him.

One morning court was abruptly adjourned without explanation. No one knew why until Mildred saw the judge carrying the little dead dog out to the parking lot, wrapped in one of his sweaters.

Neither his wife nor the dachshund was ever replaced.

The judge’s doctor had given him dire warnings and explicit instructions. During every recess and at lunchtime he was to lie down and think of nothing at all. He was to imagine a blackboard with words written on it in chalk and an eraser moving back and forth and up and down until all the words had disappeared. But the judge had found that as soon as the words were gone they were replaced by pictures.

This morning it was the picture of a young woman who had flung her two children off the bridge and been successfully defended by a court-appointed lawyer. A year or so after the trial she gave birth to another unwanted child, which she tried to flush down the toilet. The subsequent flooding led to her quick arrest. Much to nobody’s surprise, she was found guilty and sent to Corona, where, the judge hoped, part of her rehabilitation would include birth control information.

The eraser moved back and forth across the blackboard and the young woman’s picture disappeared and the judge slept.

Recess stretched from fifteen to twenty-four minutes. Chronic tardiness on the part of a judge with an already overloaded court calendar was inexcusable, in Eva Foster’s opinion, and would not happen if a woman were sitting on the bench.

After the bailiff had buzzed for the judge, and while the court was awaiting his reentry, Eva stopped at the stenotype machine to talk to Mildred Noon.

“You and I should be running this courtroom,” she said. “And why aren’t we?”

“For one thing, we’re not lawyers.”

“We could be. We could attend night classes right here in town.”

“Not me. That’s the only time I get to spend with my husband.”

“Don’t you want to make something of yourself?”

“I thought I was already something.”

“I mean, a real something something.”

“I’m afraid I’ll just have to settle for an ordinary something.”

“Are you content to let men rule the world?”

“Well, I don’t have time to do it,” Mildred said cheerfully. “Now, get off this kick and go back to your place. The judge’s door is opening.”

“The king cometh. We’ll discuss this further at lunchtime.”

The hell we will, Mildred thought, and sat poised at her machine, looking comfortable and relaxed. It took years of practice not to get jumpy, especially at the beginning of a murder trial. She had learned to prepare herself by going over in advance the names of witnesses and by familiarizing herself with medical terms likely to be used by psychiatrists and pathologists.

The court reporters always worked in pairs. For the past six years Mildred’s co-worker had been a small, silent man named Ortig.

Ortig could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty years old. He never volunteered his age or any other information about himself. Since Mildred was easily encouraged to talk, it was advantageous for her to have a partner who never asked or answered questions. She and Ortig relieved each other every ten or fifteen minutes since the job required such intense concentration and quick reflexes.

When Ortig came in to take over, he would sit at the machine next to her and with an almost imperceptible nod of his head indicate that he was ready to pick up on the next sentence. They were like a pair of circus jugglers taking over the flying pins from each other in midair.

The judge came in, flapping his worn black wings, and perched on the edge of his chair. He was angry, at himself for oversleeping, the court employees who didn’t have sense enough to wake him up, and the doctor who advised him to lie down in the first place. He didn’t need rest. He needed activity. He wanted to bounce up and down to music like the aerobic dancers he saw on TV. Juror No. 12 taught aerobic dancing, martial arts and aquadynamics, and she looked very fit. He had not, however, seen men his own age doing any of these things.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “you have heard the opening statement of counsel for the people, Mr. Owen. And it is now time for the opening statement of counsel for the defense, Mr. Donnelly. Are you ready, Mr. Donnelly?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“And why not?”

“In view of what has been said on the validity of opening statements I wish to forgo the opportunity afforded me at this time.”

“You are not going to make an opening statement?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“This is rather irregular, Mr. Donnelly. Have you discussed it with your client?”

“My client puts his faith in my ability.”

The defendant, who’d been looking as surprised as the rest of the people in the courtroom, now smiled, first at Donnelly, then at the jury, then at the judge. It was a warm, confiding smile that moved some people and irritated others.

Donnelly didn’t even notice. “My client has been sitting here forced to listen to all kinds of accusations against him, most of them spawned in the dark recesses of the district attorney’s mind. For me to stand up here and merely contradict would be futile. I will therefore wait for evidence to prove the innocence of my client, evidence provided by witnesses under oath and subject to cross-examination.”

“There is no further need for you to convince me,” the judge said. “You are privileged to forgo making an opening statement. Without further ado, we will start the testimony. Mr. Owen, do you have your first witness within call?”

“No, Your Honor. Witness was led to understand that he wouldn’t be taking the stand before this afternoon.”

“Do you have any witnesses ready at all?”

“Not here and now. The morning was to have been taken up by opening statements.” He stared coldly and reproachfully down the length of the table at Donnelly. “I was not forewarned by defense counsel of this new ploy of his.”

“So the court is at a standstill.”

“It would seem so, Your Honor.”

“Very well. We will adjourn until one-thirty this afternoon. Spectators will please keep their seats until after the jury has departed. Jurors will leave their notebooks on their respective chairs to be collected by the bailiff. They are admonished not to discuss this case with anyone else or among themselves.”

The jurors filed out in order, looking self-conscious and carefully avoiding the eyes of the spectators and of the defendant.

Donnelly had a personal file on all the jurors, compiled by his legman, Bill Gunther, and two assistants, and containing a variety of facts from a social security number to favorite food, magazines subscribed to, vehicle driven, church affiliation, if any, marital status and number of children. Did he possess a library card? A dog or cat? Perhaps none of these things would influence the outcome, but Donnelly knew as well as the judge did that one of them, seemingly unconnected and trivial, might directly affect the verdict. One vote, one solitary vote, would result in a hung jury, and that was what he was going for.

The vote that could hang the jury might be that of Miss Lisa Roy, who clerked in a women’s apparel shop and raised Burmese cats as a hobby. She might be less inclined to vote against Cully because he had taken a cat on the Bewitched’s 4,000-mile journey. Or the solitary vote might belong to Mr. Hudson, whose black brother-in-law in Chicago gave him reason to resent the district attorney’s obvious prejudice against blacks.

Though the district attorney’s case against Cully King was circumstantial, it was strong, mainly because of the absence of other suspects and other motives. The most Donnelly could hope for at this point was a hung jury.

One vote was enough, and Donnelly was going for it.

In his chambers the judge removed his robe and put on a tweed jacket. He felt suddenly exhausted as if he had in fact, not merely in fantasy, been bouncing up and down to music. His heartbeat was rapid, and when he looked in the mirror to comb his hair, he saw that his face was flushed and moist.

His normal routine when court adjourned for the morning was to get in his car and drive to a seafood café on the waterfront. Here he would relax over a bottle of Molson’s ale and a plate of ridgeback shrimp or freshly trapped lobster. But it was too early for lunch, and he knew he couldn’t relax with the sights and sounds and smells of the waterfront reminding him of the case. The Bewitched itself would be visible at the very end of the marina since it was too large to fit into the inner slips.

Instead of going out to his car, he lay down again on the brown leather couch. He knew these were bad signs — the accelerated heartbeat and flushed face, the feeling of weakness and the sweating without exertion. He was not afraid of dying, but it would be damned annoying to have to bow out of this case before it was finished.

It seemed straightforward enough: a man, a woman, lust and anger and greed. He had presided over dozens of them, knifings in sordid little bars, shots from a Saturday night special, blows from a fist, a hammer, a baseball bat. This case didn’t fit the pattern. The setting was wrong, a well-known racing yacht; the woman was wrong, married, respectable, devout. These elements could be reconciled, of course; things happened on racing yachts, and good women sometimes had bad luck. But the third element, the defendant, didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. He was an unlikely skipper of a famous yacht, a black, only thirty-six or seven years old and looking and acting younger. Perhaps at the helm of the Bewitched he was much older than his years, but here in the courtroom he was almost childlike, following the proceedings with bright-eyed interest, smiling at the slightest provocation, seemingly unaware of or at least untroubled by the situation he was in. The judge had read a newspaper article which quoted the ship’s owner, Mr. Belasco: “Cully King is the best skipper money can buy. He’s cool, confident and afraid of nothing.”

He still appeared unafraid, though he knew that if he were found guilty, this same jury would decide his fate during the penalty phase of the trial, death in the gas chamber or life in prison without possibility of parole.

Somewhere inside he must be afraid, the judge thought, just as I am probably afraid somewhere inside, and I’m thirty years older with very little to lose and no one to mourn my losing it.

Sweat streamed down the judge’s face. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe it off, and a garlic capsule rolled out on the floor. He picked it up, popped it in his mouth and began to chew. “Garlic,” the manager of the health food store told him, “regenerates the bile ducts, the blood, the bowels.” The judge was aware that these same claims were made for a dozen other products on the shelves, but proving fraud would be difficult since it was impossible to tell whether one’s bile ducts were regenerating or degenerating. No matter. The garlic served its real purpose, generating privacy.

He closed his eyes and imagined the blackboard again and the eraser wiping out the words and a picture beginning to appear. The picture this time was the face of Cully King smiling at him, friendly, almost benign, as though he didn’t blame anyone for his predicament and he hoped no one would blame him.

Where did this man’s confidence come from? Certainly not from his background, which could only have taught him to be wary and suspicious. Born in St. John, he had run away to sea at twelve and spent his adolescence in and out of the waterfront dives and rum shops of the Caribbean, doing nearly every kind of job on nearly every kind of vessel. The skin of a white man exposed for that many years to sun and wind would carry the scars of old cancers and the keratoids that signaled others to come. But Cully King’s face was smooth and placid as a pond. There were no worry lines from storms at sea, no reminders of bordello brawls or arguments settled by knives or bull pistols. He had survived unmarked, as if he had wiped out bad memories just as the eraser had wiped out the words on the judge’s blackboard.

The judge finished chewing the capsule, and the smell of garlic drifted under the door into his secretary’s office, where it competed with the scent of Estée Lauder’s Youth-Dew.

It was no contest. Estée was beaten by a nose.

Court resumed at one-forty in the afternoon. The time was duly noted by Eva Foster in her book; then she crossed the area between the judge and the counsel table, carrying a Bible.

“Please state your full name for the record and spell the last one.”

“Peter Gray Belasco. B-E-L-A-S-C-O.”

“Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the matter now pending before this court, so help you God?”

“I do.”

“Please be seated.”

Belasco took his place in the witness box. A tall, wiry man in his late fifties with a habitual sun squint.

Belasco’s full beard stretched at the corners in a brief, friendly smile directed at Cully. Then he turned his attention back to the district attorney.

“Where do you reside. Mr. Belasco?”

“Santa Felicia, Sixty-eight Rosalita Lane.”

“And what is your occupation?”

“Mining engineer, retired. More accurately, semiretired.”

“How long have you been retired or semiretired?”

“Fourteen years.”

“Have you found any special hobby to occupy your time?”

“I race my yacht, Bewitched.”

“Will you describe this yacht for the benefit of the jury?”

“It is an aluminum ketch eighty-five feet long.”

“Where do you race this yacht?”

“Wherever there’s a race I can get to. All over the world, actually.”

“Such as?”

“New York to Bermuda. Sydney to Hobart. Fastnet off the southwest coast of England. Transpac from here to Honolulu. That’s the race I was preparing to enter before this misfortune occurred.”

“Have you ever won any of these races?”

“No, never even came close. But at least I never sank her. We arrived first in the Transpac a couple of years ago but because of our handicap had to settle for fourth place.”

“How is a handicap computed in a yacht race?”

“It’s a time handicap based on the size of the ship and the amount of sail carried. A smaller ship might come in a day later than Bewitched and still be declared the winner.”

“This yacht, the Bewitched, how would you describe it?”

“As I said, it’s an aluminum ketch eighty-five feet from bow to stern.”

“Did you, last spring, compete in a race from Nassau to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do after the race?”

“Commiserated with my crew — we came in last — and then flew home to California. I have too many pressing business interests here to allow me to spend all my time sailing.”

“What arrangements did you make for your boat?”

“Cully King is my skipper, and I told him to bring her back here through the Panama Canal.”

“Is King in the courtroom at this time?”

“Yes, sir. He’s sitting over there. First-rate skipper, knows the boat well and is very competent.”

“We need not dwell on the ability of Mr. King to do his job.” The district attorney gave Belasco a cold sour look to remind him that he was a witness for the prosecution, not a press agent for the defense. “You had a contract with Mr. King to bring the boat back here?”

“Yes.”

“And what were the financial arrangements of this agreement?”

“It is customary to pay a skipper by the mile, a dollar, a dollar-fifty, two dollars. I offered Cully top price, two-fifty, because I have a great deal of money invested in the Bewitched.”

“Approximately how long is the journey by sea from St. Thomas to Santa Felicia?”

“It varies with weather conditions. Four thousand miles is a close estimate.”

“So Mr. King earned approximately twelve thousand dollars.”

“Yes, but out of that he will have to pay his crew. With only three men aboard, the Bewitched is tight-handed, and the men must work long, hard hours and be paid accordingly. There is some danger involved as well as hard work. Along the west coast of Central America, because of political unrest, passing vessels are sometimes chased, brought back to port and detained. In view of all this, I expect Harry Arnold and his son to get a sizable portion of the twelve thousand dollars. So far it’s all just theoretical since I haven’t had a chance to pay anybody anything.”

Once more he smiled at Cully King, and Cully returned the smile. The exchange annoyed and aggravated the twitch at one corner of Owen’s mouth. Right from the beginning he had disliked Belasco, whom he privately referred to as a rich bleeding-heart liberal like Donnelly, a socialist, a possible dope smuggler, even a spy. Why did he have to race all over the world? Why couldn’t he race up and down the coast like a normal person?

When he spoke again, his voice was tight. “How long does the journey from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands to Santa Felicia take?”

“Again, it depends on the weather. There are favorable winds, the trades, from St. Thomas to Colón, that’s about a thousand miles, roughly one week. There are often delays at the Canal, where the ships pile up, waiting their turn like the planes at a large airport. Panama is the crossroads of international shipping. From Panama to Mazatlán there are areas of calm, but north from Mazatlán you often run into head winds. Time must be allowed for provision and fuel stops. Altogether I’d say the voyage takes a month. The duration of this particular one is documented in the log of the Bewitched right down to the last minute. But that log is not in my possession. You have it.”

“Indeed I do. In fact, I’m about to use it.” He approached the table where Eva Foster was sitting. “Would you bring in the blue book I gave you this morning?”

Eva went back to the exhibit room and returned carrying a blue vinyl book with the name Bewitched printed on it in gold letters. The district attorney took the book from her and offered it to Donnelly to examine. Donnelly did so briefly.

The judge said, “Are you offering this in evidence, Mr. Owen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let it be marked people’s exhibit one. At this point I would like to explain to the jury that all people’s exhibits will be marked by numbers, and those of the defense by letters of the alphabet.”

The district attorney showed the book to the witness. “Do you recognize this, Mr. Belasco?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is it?”

“The log of the Bewitched.”

“What is entered in such a log?”

“Everything that concerns a boat.”

“Give us some examples, please.”

“Well, the obvious thing is the weather, wind velocity and direction, water conditions such as size of swells, information on whether the vessel is proceeding under sail or power, how much fuel is added to the engine, et cetera.”

“Is such information entered in the log on a regular basis?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“Every hour or half hour, depending on the circumstances... Since you’ve seen the log, you already know all this.”

“The jury doesn’t. For their benefit I am trying to set the stage, to show them the setting in which this tragedy occurred. Now go on, Mr. Belasco. What circumstances would increase the number of entries in the log?”

“If the weather is foul and the seas are heavy; if one of the crewmen is ill or has met with some kind of accident; if the jimmy is kicking up—”

“Jimmy?”

“The engine is a GMC diesel commonly referred to as jimmy.”

“I am going to open this logbook,” Owen said, “and show you the initial entry for the journey we’ve been discussing. Can you see the first entry?”

Belasco squinted down at the page a couple of times, then took a pair of reading glasses from his pocket and put them on. “Yes, I see it.”

“What does it indicate?”

“The time and date and point of departure, St. Thomas. Seas calm, wind five knots. Proceeding under power. Two crewmen aboard, Harry Arnold, Richie Arnold.”

“Stop there a moment. Is it standard procedure to record the names of the crew?”

“Yes.”

“What about passengers?”

“I’m not sure what the question is.”

“If there are passengers on board, is their presence duly noted in the log?”

“It depends on what kind of boat it is and the policy of whoever is in charge.”

“The boat I’m referring to is the Bewitched. Does that clarify my question?”

“Yes.”

“Then answer it, please.”

“Usually the presence of passengers aboard the Bewitched is recorded, but it’s not a hard-and-fast rule.”

“Before you answer the next question, I would like to advise you that I have been over this entire log. Can you, Mr. Belasco, recall any journey where the passengers were not listed in the logbook?”

Belasco tightened his mouth as if he were reefing a sail during a storm. “Evidently you know more about my journeys than I do, Mr. Owen.”

“We are back to square one. Is it customary for the log of the Bewitched to show the arrival of a passenger on board?”

“Yes.”

“We could have saved time if you’d answered that in the beginning.”

Owen turned his attention to the judge. “Your Honor, I think at this point the jury should be advised that Mr. Belasco is a reluctant witness, if not a downright hostile one.”

“I object,” Donnelly said. “Witness has shown neither reluctance nor hostility, only a desire for the district attorney to be more precise in his questions.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard the last remarks of the district attorney.”

Owen took the log from Belasco’s hand and opened it to a later page, indicated by a bookmark. “Please note, and state for the record, the time of arrival in San Diego’s Harbor Island.”

“April thirtieth. The boat cleared customs, took on fuel and provisions and prepared to leave the following morning before dawn.”

“And did it?”

“That’s what the log says.”

“Does the log indicate a passenger coming on board with Mr. King?”

“No.”

“There is no record of a passenger coming on board?”

“No.”

“Yet one did, isn’t that right?”

“So I’m told.”

Donnelly was about to get up to object, but the judge spoke first. “Take heed, Counselors. I have warned you before about the time element. This case promises — or shall I say threatens? — to become one of the longest in the county’s history. We must try to keep within the budget allotted to us by the Board of Supervisors. We now know every square inch of the boat and just about every square inch of the people on it.”

He gave each man in turn his sternest look, but it was a wasted effort. Donnelly was whispering to his client and Owen was consulting his notes.

I have lost my personal ascendancy in this courtroom, the judge thought. In the old days attorneys quailed when I stared at them like that. Now they don’t even notice. They know I won’t be here next year. Maybe I’m not altogether here this year, judging by the way Mildred and Miss Foster look at me. In order to regain my prestige, I might have to do something quite drastic, make a very unusual ruling that will be quoted decades after I’m gone.

“You previously testified, Mr. Belasco,” Owen said, “that the Bewitched is eighty-five feet in length, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“That is long for a yacht. But it is quite small when you consider it as an area where people are confined. It is, in fact, something less than one-third the size of a football field. If you put four people in an area one-third the size of a football field, it would be difficult for them to remain unaware of each other, would it not?”

“I’ve never put four people on one-third of a football field.”

“You are rather frivolously evading the question, Mr. Belasco.”

“I don’t mean to. The fact is, a yacht like the Bewitched is not simply a length; it is a structure like a house with a number of rooms, an upstairs, downstairs, cellar. One person could easily remain out of sight of the others.”

Owen’s throat was beginning to feel constricted, a warning that his voice would start to rise in pitch and to sound peevish.

He was a student of voices, especially his own. He could tell by listening to a tape whether he had had an argument with his wife, Virginia, or one of the boys had gotten into mischief at school. Trouble that could be hidden inside the eyes or behind a smile showed quite clearly in a voice.

Owen took three or four deep breaths to relax his throat muscles before he spoke again. “At several places in the log there are references to communications with P. B. Who is P. B.?”

“They’re my initials.”

“When the Bewitched is at sea not under your command, do you keep in touch with the skipper?”

“When possible or necessary we talk by radiophone.”

“Do you give Mr. King, for instance, orders?”

“I may make suggestions, but usually Cully merely keeps me informed what’s going on.”

“Did you discuss with Mr. King the upcoming race to Honolulu, the Transpac?”

“Naturally.”

“Did you ask him to try to pick up a cook for that race? A simple yes or no answer, please.”

Belasco hesitated. “Well, I didn’t exactly—”

“Did you ask Mr. King to pick up a cook? Yes or no.”

“No.”

“I have no further questions at this time.”

“You may step down, Mr. Belasco,” the judge said. “Before Mr. Donnelly begins his cross-examination, we will take the afternoon recess of fifteen minutes.”

The jurors filed into the jury room, and most of the spectators into the corridor. The judge remained where he was, summoning the bailiff, Zeke di Santo, with a slight nod of his head.

The bailiff approached the bench, moving awkwardly for a young man, as though he were not yet used to the extra weight accumulated during a year of sitting in a courtroom.

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“What’s the matter with the air-conditioning?”

“It isn’t working, sir.”

“I’m aware that it isn’t working. Why isn’t it working?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Can you find out and do something about it?”

“Probably not. These matters seem to be in the lap of the gods.”

“Surely the gods have left us the capacity to open windows.”

“Yes, Your Honor. But that will mean an increase in traffic noises, which might prevent Your Honor from hearing things.”

“At the moment I’m not listening to anything except your fatuities... Speaking of hearing things, every now and then I hear a kind of low, humming noise. Have you noticed it?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“What is it?”

“It appears to be a low, humming sound.”

“I know that. But where’s it coming from and why?”

“I think it’s coming from the defendant, sir. He hums.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it’s because he’s happy.”

“Happy? Nobody in a courtroom is supposed to be happy. Are you happy, Di Santo?”

“I’m betwixt and between.”

“You look fairly happy. I observe you laughing at my jokes.”

“Oh, yes, sir. The loudest.”

“The loudest? Why?”

“I appreciate Your Honor’s sense of humor.” Also, I got a wife and kid to support.

The bailiff opened a window, and cool, noisy air pushed past him into the room as if it had been waiting all day to get in.

Di Santo felt the coolness with surprise. The morning had been crisp and clear, and at noon the weather had been like August. Now, in midafternoon, it was fall again with the fog drifting in from the sea, draping the tops of the tall Mexican palms so only the trunks were visible like haphazardly placed telephone poles.

He looked out and saw the courthouse pigeons taking shelter in the bell tower, and the solitary emerald green parrot, once somebody’s pet, gliding across the busy street like a flying traffic light. The bird was quiet for a parrot, probably because it had nothing to squawk about. From the pigeons it had learned to freeload, and it lived well on the handouts from a nearby restaurant and the contents of the lunch boxes and the brown bags of the office workers who ate in the sunken gardens, bologna sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and pickles and pieces of fruit. It drank from the courthouse fountain and picked figs and hawthorn berries and pyracantha in season.

Di Santo envied that parrot. Nobody nagged it for eating too much; in fact, nobody knew how to tell whether a parrot was fat or thin except by weighing it, and this parrot was not about to be weighed. It had successfully resisted all efforts to capture it and flew merrily, fat or thin, from tree to tree, lunch box to paper bag.

Di Santo was not so lucky. His wife kept a scale in the bathroom and had pasted on the refrigerator door the picture of a fat man, an actor who had died quite young of a heart attack. For his birthday Di Santo’s wife had given him a membership in a health club, to which he paid a few halfhearted visits. He preferred bowling and beering with his friends. It seemed more sensible than lifting weights with his feet.

The courtroom was almost empty now. Donnelly and Cully King sat talking in whispers, and Eva Foster was still at the table she shared with Di Santo. She watched him cross the room with the same critical appraisal as his wife and the receptionist at the health club.

Di Santo knew what was coming, and to avoid it, or at least postpone it, he stopped at the water cooler.

Eva joined him there. “What did you have for lunch?”

“You know I never eat lunch.”

“How could you after that breakfast?”

“What breakfast? All I had was an orange. And maybe a piece of dry toast. That’s all my wife would give me.”

“So you went into McDonald’s and ate two eggs McMuffin. I saw you.”

“A guy has to have protein,” Zeke said. “I read in the Reader’s Digest that without enough protein the brain shrivels.”

“Your brain has already shriveled so you don’t have to worry about it. Do you want my honest opinion?”

“No.”

“Here it is anyway. When the judge retires, this courtroom will have a new presiding judge who’ll want his — or hopefully her — own bailiff. That will give you a chance to ask the sheriff for a more active job. You’re not burning off your calories. The only exercise you get is unlocking and locking doors and letting your belt out another notch. Wouldn’t you rather be outside in the open air, investigating things and chasing criminals?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They might chase me back.”

In spite of the open windows, the room was still hot and smelled of people under stress.

Donnelly addressed his client without looking at him. There was something about Cully King’s face, an innocence, even a sweetness, that was too disarming. It made him want to believe whatever came out of the soft, sensuous mouth or was expressed in the soft, sensuous eyes. Donnelly knew it was a mistake, this trusting. Clients lied, all of them, innocent or guilty. They tilted the truth, and it was his job to level it again.

“In our first conversation,” Donnelly said, “and in subsequent ones you told me that Belasco asked you to hire a cook for the Transpac.”

“He did. At least I had the impression he did. We talked about it.”

“When?”

“When I called him from Mazatlán. It’s in the log.”

“That he asked you to hire a cook?”

“No. But the call itself is logged.”

“Not the contents of it?”

“No.”

“Repeat the conversation.”

“There was the usual stuff, how are things going and all like that. Then he mentioned that he didn’t have a cook yet for the race. He’s a fussy eater, not the kind of guy who’d settle for beans and black pudding. Mr. Belasco has to have the best.”

“You’re veering away from the subject. Stick to what he actually said.”

“I already told you. He said he didn’t have a cook for the Transpac yet.”

“Did he say he wanted one?”

“Well, sure he wanted one. The cook’s very important in a race of any length. I got the impression that he wanted me to do something about it, try to get hold of one for him if the chance came.”

“And the chance came in the form of Madeline Pherson?”

“I thought it did. I mean, I thought I would be doing Mr. Belasco a favor by taking her on.”

“Come off it, Cully. You wanted a good screw.”

Cully considered this for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. It sounds kind of disrespectful now, but at the time it was just natural. She didn’t look to me like the way Mr. Owen described her in his speech, all that church stuff and everything. And she didn’t order any Perrier water either. She had a double martini. I should know. I paid for it.”

“What was Mrs. Pherson wearing when she came into the bar?”

“I don’t know. I told you that before. I don’t know.”

“Tell me again.”

“I can’t remember. The only thing I notice about women’s clothes is whether they’re on or off.”

“Oh, great. Terrific.” Donnelly pressed his pencil so hard into the notebook that the lead broke. “That will sound wonderful in front of a jury.”

“I wouldn’t say that in front of a jury, Mr. Donnelly.”

“You’re goddamn right you wouldn’t. You’re not going to get in front of a jury until we straighten out a few misconceptions. For instance, you think jurors are people, don’t you?”

“Sure they’re people.”

“Wrong. They started out as people, but once they were sworn in and took their seats in that jury box, they changed. They turned into defenders of the truth. And at the beginning of every trial one truth is evident: A crime has been committed and a person has been arrested for committing it. Why has this person been arrested? Because the police are convinced he is guilty, the police whom we are all brought up to trust and respect. So we start off with a pretty lopsided situation. If a vote was taken now, this afternoon, you would be convicted.”

“You mean they all think I’m guilty?”

“Probably. It comes with the territory, the territory being the county jail.”

Drops of fear had appeared on Cully’s forehead. “Hey, man, you’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you?”

Donnelly didn’t answer. A scared client was a lot easier to defend than a confident one. A dose of reality might help cleanse Cully’s system like a spring tonic. “When the jury returns in a few minutes, look at them carefully. They’re your enemies. It’s up to you to make them your friends, to convince them that cops are not infallible; they make mistakes like anyone else, and one of their biggest mistakes was arresting you for murder.”

“It was a mistake. I didn’t do anything.”

“Of course you did. Maybe not all you’re accused of doing but some of it. I never had a completely innocent client. Don’t go spoiling my record.”

Cully wiped the sweat off his forehead. He didn’t understand this man, who had no feelings, who never smiled, never frowned, a cruel man who seemed to hate his job and hate his clients but never stopped working. The jail grapevine had him married to a rich woman. Maybe it did funny things to a man, marrying a rich woman.

“I’ve studied this jury,” Donnelly said. “And it’s no different from any of the others. What they want is a defendant who’s humble. Do you think you can manage the humble bit?”

“I didn’t do anything. Why should I act humble?”

“Because you have a smart lawyer who tells you to. Are you smart enough to take his advice?”

“I guess so. But it’s tough to act humble when I don’t feel humble, when I don’t have anything to feel humble about. I’m not sure how to start.”

“Oh, Christ, forget it. Just don’t act like a smartass. Think you can manage that?”

Cully thought about it a minute. Then: “You’re a pretty big guy, aren’t you?”

“Six-three.”

“I’m five-nine. But if I met you on a street in St. John and you called me a smartass, I’d cut you, man, I’d cut you like a piece of fruit.”

“A piece of fruit,” Donnelly repeated, looking somewhat amused. “I’m almost sorry you won’t get a chance to try. It might be interesting. Right now, however, it seems doubtful that you’ll meet me on a street in St. John or meet anyone on any street at any time in the future. That is, unless you start listening to your attorney. So are you listening?”

“I’m listening.”

“Good... Time’s nearly up. Do you have to go to the can?”

“No.”

“I do. See you soon.”

It was three-twenty when the judge reentered the courtroom and the witness took his place on the stand again. Donnelly approached the lectern. In the small well of the court he looked massive, and his slow, careful adjusting of the speaker to his height emphasized the shortfall of the district attorney. “Mr. Belasco, is it mandatory for a skipper to record in the log the names of passengers who come aboard?”

“No.”

“It is up to the individual skipper?”

“Yes.”

“Do you yourself list passengers?”

“Usually. In a race, of course, everything is recorded down to the slightest detail. But in casual sailing I may omit quite a few things, accidentally or on purpose.”

“According to the log, Mr. King called you by radiophone from Mazatlán. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“At that time did you tell him you were still lacking a cook for the Transpac race?”

“Yes.”

“Can you recall exactly what you said?”

“Not exactly word by word. But I told him I still had no cook for the Transpac.”

“Did you tell him you needed one?”

“I didn’t have to tell him that. He knows how important a cook is in a long race.”

“Did you ask him to keep on the alert for one?”

“I’m sure I made such a request by implication.”

“Would you say then that you asked him in a roundabout way to hire a cook or at least to be on the lookout for one?”

“I would say that, yes. I never have to spell things out for Cully because he seems to know instinctively what is required of him.”

The district attorney rose. “I object to the witness volunteering irrelevant remarks about the defendant.”

“You will try to confine yourself to answering questions, Mr. Belasco,” the judge said.

Donnelly stood motionless at the lectern until all the attention was refocused on him. “I have no more questions, Mr. Belasco. Thank you.”

The judge looked slightly annoyed as if this somehow had spoiled his schedule for the afternoon. “Mr. Owen, do you want to recross?”

Owen changed places with Donnelly at the lectern. “Were you surprised when you learned that Mr. King had taken Mrs. Pherson on as cook?”

“I was surprised when I learned of her background and position in society. But of course, I didn’t find that out until I read about it in the newspapers and saw it on TV.”

“Did Mr. King call you while the Bewitched was en route from San Diego to tell you he was giving a woman a chance at the job?”

“He may have tried. I don’t know. I was unavailable. I’d been summoned to my father’s bedside in Palm Springs. He had a heart attack.”

“A simple yes or no will be sufficient.”

“I don’t know if he called me. I wasn’t home.”

“I have no more questions.”

Belasco started to leave the stand, but the judge held him back with a gesture. “Just a minute, Mr. Belasco. Mr. Donnelly might want to re-recross. Mr. Donnelly?”

“I have a couple of questions mainly for clarification purposes,” Donnelly said. “Mr. Belasco, where were you when the Bewitched was on its way here from San Diego?”

“I was in Palm Springs.”

“Why?”

“My father was very ill.”

“Did you inform Mr. King where you were?”

“No.”

“I have nothing further at this moment.”

“You are free to step down, Mr. Belasco,” the judge said. “I would like at this time to remind you that all witnesses are admonished to stay out of the courtroom during these proceedings except for the time they spend testifying. Was it made clear to you previously that you are to stay away from the courtroom before and after your testimony?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You are free to leave with the understanding that you may be recalled later... Do you have another witness, Mr. Owen?”

“Not immediately.” Owen slid an accusing look down the long polished table toward Donnelly. “I expected the cross-examination of Mr. Belasco to take up the rest of the afternoon.”

“May I advise both counselors to have more than one witness available to take the stand — that is, either waiting in the corridor or at some nearby location. A good deal of time has been wasted this morning and this afternoon due to the absence of witnesses.” He tapped his gavel lightly. Wood on wood was barely audible over the other sounds invading the courtroom, traffic noises through the open window, and the babble of voices from the hall, where a docent was leading her group of tourists through the memorabilia of the city’s history, old wagons and cannons, display cases filled with arrowheads and shells from the kitchen midden embedded in cliffs along the shore, antique firearms and pictures. For the docent and her little troop, the courthouse was a place to relive what had happened, not to take part in what was happening behind every door with a lighted sign above it: QUIET, COURT IN SESSION.

The judge raised his voice. “We will adjourn until ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Spectators will please keep their seats until the jurors have departed. Jurors are admonished not to discuss or refer to these proceedings with anyone at all.”

When the Judge returned to his chambers, he stood for a minute staring at the picture on his desk of a stout brown-haired woman holding a stout brown-haired dachshund. Both looked content with each other and with themselves. They were nice people, these two, and he really hadn’t deserved either of them. But they had pretended not to be aware of this and tolerated him and made him happy.

He took off his robe and hung it in the closet, trying to figure out what Donnelly was up to. His failure to make an opening statement and the terseness of his cross-examination had the effect of making Owen’s presentation seem too verbose. Brevity was one of Donnelly’s favorite ploys, and juries on the whole appeared to like it, equating simplicity with truth. Truth, they thought, needed no varnish, the lily no gilding. They were wrong, of course. The truth sometimes required a great deal of elaboration, and he’d seen lilies that could have used at least a touch of gilding.

He put on his sports jacket and went out through the small reception room. Here his secretary, Krista, was on the telephone talking to her boyfriend, calling him sir so no one would catch on.

“Oh, yes, sir. Five o’clock, maybe a bit sooner, sir.”

The judge never indicated that he had caught on to the deception the second time he’d heard it. It seemed to give her an innocent pleasure, which he preferred not to spoil. She was, after all, a good-natured girl and not terribly incompetent.

She smiled and waved good-bye, but she didn’t hang up. The judge realized for the first time that she knew he knew and was somehow giving his blessing to her and sir. He thought, Dammit, I don’t even know sir. He might be a hardened criminal she had seen clanking down the corridor to his hearing. Their eyes met, it was love at first sight and she vowed to wait for him until he was paroled.

He opened the door, hesitated, then turned back to his secretary. “Krista, if you need advice in handling a personal problem, kindly do not come to me.”

“All right.”

“Consult a professional.”

“All right.”

“Or better still, handle it yourself. Do what you want to do, which is what you’re going to do anyway, advice or no advice.”

The fog stopped drifting in from the sea when it reached the foothills of the mountains. It was motionless now, pressing down on the city like a wet gray night, dripping from the lampposts of the parking lot and polishing the leather leaves of the fig tree, which dominated the landscape.

The fig tree had been there before the parking lot, before the cars, even before the courthouse itself. Its great roots reached out like the arms of an octopus, crumbling the surface, squeezing the asphalt into submission. Occasionally some impertinent upstart suggested removing the tree, but this idea was so contrary to the city’s policies that its author barely escaped a mob of protesters from such varied associations as the Chamber of Commerce, the Sierra Club, the Historical Society, the Chumash Indian Council and the downtown businessmen’s garden club.

The tree remained, generating a brisk business in shock absorbers.

The judge identified with the fig tree, in its age and strength and ability to make itself felt. Seeing new fissures appear in the pavement and grow wider each week gave him pleasure even though his rheumatic old Lincoln grumbled at the discomfort.

As he was about to turn into the street, he saw Donnelly standing beside a Mercedes coupé with a dented fender, talking to his investigator, Bill Gunther. Their heads were close together as if they wanted to be sure no one overheard their conversation, an unnecessary precaution since the fog smothered sounds like an acoustical curtain.

Gunther didn’t put much faith in acoustical curtains or anything else. Suspicion was an integral part of his nature and of his job. He was an ex-cop from Las Vegas, where suspicion hung low and thick over the roulette wheels and blackjack tables. In his present job he’d become very popular with the courthouse crowd. He told fat people they were getting thin and thin people they were putting on weight. He told pretty girls they were smart and smart girls they were pretty, watching with amusement the eagerness with which people swallowed an undeserved compliment.

Gunther and his boss had only one thing in common, work. Neither of them had time for or interest in cultivating close friends.

“The judge is coming,” Donnelly said. “Do you suppose we should try to look less intimate?”

“We have nothing to be intimate about. Have we?”

Judge Hazeltine, who was getting more and more farsighted as he aged, had seen the two heads together. The sight disturbed him, he didn’t know why. It was none of his business. They could carry their heads underneath their arms like the ghost of Anne Boleyn if they wanted to, and it would still be none of his business and violate no law that he knew about.

He guided his old Lincoln out into the street in the direction of home although the car could possibly have made the trip by itself after all these years.

Switching on the headlights, he half sang and half murmured the words of the old song: