Baby, Would I Lie?

34

For Bob Sangster, the big-nosed Aussie from the Weekly Galaxy, permanent member of the Down Under Trio, life as a shadow juror was one long vacation. All he had to do was laze around the motel all day: in and out of the swimming pool; in and out of the special dining room set aside for the jurors and stocked at all times with a working buffet; in and out of the common room full of magazines and board games and VCR movies, where he flirted dispassionately with three of the five female jurors — shadowettes, he called them — the other two being just too ridiculous. Then, late in the day, all fourteen shadows would get into the bus and be driven from Branson over to Forsyth to look at the video of that day in court, or, that is, as much of that day in court as the real jury had seen, which tended to be not very much.

Bob was known to his fellow shadows as Jock O’Shanley, a naturalized American citizen originally from Galway Bay, brrrrightest jew-wel aff the Umerald Aysle. The actual Jock O’Shanley, a night cook at Skaggs Community Hospital, a divorced loner living in an amazingly filthy cottage down by Ozark Beach, and a dedicated alcoholic, was at the moment having his own vacation, at Weekly Galaxy expense, in San Diego, where most of the alcoholics are seamen and therefore expected to stagger a little on land.

Jock O’Shanley wasn’t the sort of amiable Irish drunk who made friends easily, or at all, so it was unlikely any old pal of good old Jock’s would suddenly pop up and say, “You ain’t Jock O’Shanley, bugger me eyes!” Nor were Jock’s employers at the hospital surprised when he’d called to say he was taking a couple weeks away from the job; well, actually, they were surprised he’d called. Physically, Bob Sangster and Jock were alike enough, both being rangy gnarly guys consisting mostly of bone and gristle marinated for a good long time in booze, and in Taney County an Australian accent can pass for an Irish accent with no trouble at all.

For the two days of the trial so far, Friday and Monday, Bob was conscientious enough in his simulation of Jock O’Shanley the shadow juror. Over in Forsyth each day, after the fourteen of them had watched the videotape of that day in court, Warren Thurbridge and his assistants would ask questions and solicit opinions, and Bob, not wanting to invalidate the process by his presence any more than was absolutely necessary, did his best to give responses a Jock O’Shanley might give. In the second part of each afternoon’s exercise, when the lawyers discussed with their shadow jurors various strategies and ploys that might be put into play on the morrow. Bob again let his knowledge of the beliefs and prejudices and ignorances and knowledges of such a fellow as Jock O’Shanley guide his tongue, and all was well.

His actual work, though, the work he did for the Weekly Galaxy, came at the end of the day, when the jurors were bused back to the motel in Branson. There, in the semi-privacy of his room — two jurors per room, each juror with a king-size bed, Bob’s roommate being a retired upholsterer from Cleveland named Hacker — Bob would remove the cassette recorder taped to his side — ouch — take out the cassette, and pass it to the maid named Laverne. In the morning, she would bring him the blank to take the used one’s place, which he would install in the machine and tape the machine again to his side.

And that was that.

The maid named Laverne had been suborned on Friday morning, the first day of the trial, by a fierce young Weekly Galaxy reporter named Erica Jacke, whose flaming red hair and hard aerobics body distracted attention from her gaunt-cheeked face and icy hazel eyes. As Erica approached Laverne in the parking lot that first morning, it was hard to believe both belonged to the same species, Laverne being soft and round and sweet and sloppy and kinda dumb. “Hi,” Erica said, with what might have been good fellowship.

“Hi,” questioned Laverne.

“You work here, don’t you?”

“Yes’m, I do.” Laverne looked at her Goofy the Dawg watch. “And I’m gonna be on time for once, too.”

“That’s great,” Erica said. Then she said, “You know about the people sequestered in there?”

“The what?”

“Well, you do know about the Ray Jones trial.”

“Oh, sure!” Laverne said, and grinned widely and leaned forward to half-whisper with bubbling excitement, “Do you think he did it?”

“Men,” Erica said. “What do you think?”

“I just bet you’re right,” Laverne said.

“You’re going to find out, when you go to work in there,” Erica told the girl, “there’re people in there that are off in their own section, can’t see anybody else or anything—”

Wide-eyed, suddenly afraid of her place of employment, Laverne said, “What did they do? Is it a jail?”

“No no no, they’re helping with the trial; they’re the extra jury.”

“Extra jury? There’s an extra jury?”

“Oh, they always do that,” Erica said. “In important cases, they do. So if something goes wrong with the first jury, they always have an extra jury that can step right in.”

“I never knew that,” Laverne said, smiling broadly again, happy at the accumulation of knowledge.

“The thing is,” Erica said, “my boyfriend’s one of those people on the jury, and they’re not allowed to see anybody, and I miss him already.”

Now, this was a palpable lie. Erica Jacke being as far as you could imagine from girlfriend material, but there are natural romantics in this world, most of them overweight, and Laverne was one. Her heart softened even more at this image of lovers wrenched apart by the inexorable processes of the law. “Gee, that’s awful,” Laverne said.

“And I know he misses me, too,” Erica said. “We’ve never been away from each other before.”

“Gosh,” Laverne said.

Here it came. Out of her shoulder bag. Erica drew the tape cassette. “I just did a letter on tape,” she explained, “because I just know Jock would like to at least hear my voice.”

“Is that his name?”

“Jock O’Shanley.”

“That’s a pretty name!”

“I love it,” Erica admitted, trying to look like a person melting in love, but failing miserably. “What’s your name?”

“Laverne. Laverne Slagel.”

“That’s a pretty name, too! I’m Erica Peterson,” Erica Jacke lied.

“Erica?” Laverne’s eyes lit up. “Like on ‘AH My Children’?”

“I was named for her!”

“Really? Has she been around that long?”

“Oh sure,” Erica said, blithely maligning a fine actress named Susan Lucci. “My mother told me, in the early days, that show was actually in black and white.”

“I never knew that!”

“Anyway,” Erica said, calling attention to the cassette by waggling it in front of Laverne, “I did this letter on tape, and I so much want Jock to hear it, and I know he has his Walkman in there so he can listen to his Merle Haggard records, so I was wondering if you could give him my letter for me.”

“Well, sure,” Laverne said, bighearted girl that she was. “But why don’t you just get it to him yourself?”

“Because they aren’t permitted to see anybody,” Erica explained, with what looked like patience. “The extra jury. They’re not allowed to talk to anybody, or watch TV, or read the papers, or anything.”

“Oh, that’s awful! No TV?”

“I know,” Erica said. “It seems un-American.”

“It does!”

“But Jock came here from Ireland and he wants to be a good citizen, so he’s going to go through with it, going to do this extra jury thing, so all I want is to let him hear my voice while he’s stuck in there.”

“That’s nice.”

“Thank you. So would you give him this tape?”

“I’d be very happy to,” Laverne said, simple and sincere and pleased as punch to be a character in a love story.

“Thank you,” Erica said, and handed Laverne the cassette.

Laverne looked confused, turned the cassette over, and saw the twenty-dollar bill Scotch-taped to the bottom. “What’s this for?” she asked, wide-eyed again.

“Well, I know you get most of your money in tips,” Erica said.

Not hardly, not with the tourists of Branson, but Laverne was just barely smart enough to say not a word at this juncture, to smile and lift both eyebrows, and wait.

And Erica went on: “You’ll have to sneak that love letter of mine to Jock, so nobody sees you do it, and that ought to be worth something, shouldn’t it?”

“Well, thanks,” Laverne said. “Gee, thanks.”

“What time do you get off work?”

“Seven,” Laverne said. “Sometimes a little later.”

“I’ll be here at seven,” Erica suggested, “just in case Jock wants to send me a love letter back.”

“Oh, you think he might?” Laverne was thrilled. “And I could bring it to you!”

“You could!”

“Why,” Laverne said, “it’s, it’s like something in the movies!

“It is, isn’t it?” Erica agreed, as though noticing the similarity for the first time.

“You know,” Laverne expanded, “the lovers are separated, and there’s this trusted person that carries their love letters back and forth and later helps them to escape.”

“Well, Jock won’t have to escape,” Erica said, returning them, if not to reality, at least to its vicinity. “We’ll just listen to each other’s love letters,” she said, “until he can come home to my arms.”

Laverne sighed, smiled, wiped away a tear, and slipped the cassette into her purse.

Friday evening, with another twenty bucks in her kick, this time from Jock O’Shanley, Laverne delivered his audio billet-doux to Erica in the parking lot. Erica thanked her and blessed her, then hurried away to the Weekly Galaxy nest on Cherokee, where Binx — still then an active coconspirator — and the rest of the team eagerly listened to the discussions among the shadow jurors and the defense team.

Monday morning, Erica was in the parking lot again, with another cassette for the faithful Laverne to carry to Erica’s love (and another crisp twenty-dollar bill for Laverne herself), and Monday evening, Laverne brought out to the parking lot and to Erica the lover’s reply. The only difference this time was that two photographers hired by Trend, “The Magazine For The Way We Live This Instant,” photographers whose usual assignments were in war-torn parts of the Third World, under fire and frequently missing presumed dead, were concealed hither and yon — one hither, the other yon — to record the entire transaction.

And later, having trailed their prey to the house on Cherokee, their telephoto lenses picked up Boy Cartwright, in for the now-missing Binx, in full hideous close-up as he gloated over this clear evidence of his wickedness.