Baby, Would I Lie?

44

Meanwhile, the real jury had less than two hours to deliberate on day one before being gathered into their own bus and driven back to their own motel in Branson, all of which was exactly what the shadow jury was doing, except that the shadows were still fourteen, while the real jury had been weeded to twelve. The last thing the judge had done before charging the jury — in which she had been somewhat less pro-prosecution than expected, probably because she felt it wasn’t needed — was reach twice into a box containing all the jurors’ names on separate sheets of paper and draw out the names of the losers, called alternates. These two were necessary in case anything happened to an actual juror, but if nothing happened to an actual juror, which is usually the case, then there wasn’t a blessed thing for these two ex-jurors to do but keep their opinions to themselves.

(The slightly raffish ex — Merchant Mariner the defense had particularly loved was now one of the alternates, while the born-again harridan in the flowered dresses that the defense had prayed would be an alternate was now firmly a juror. Sometimes you can’t win for losing.)

The alternates, however, were still sequestered. And, since it is known that jurors who discover, at the end of a tense or otherwise deeply interesting trial, that they are mere alternates, that they will not even get to be in the room where the deliberation is going on, tend to become terribly depressed, even full of feelings of guilt and self-contempt, counselors stood ready to assist these two washed-out jurors in any way they could. Of course, being counselors employed by the state, they weren’t worth much, but it’s the thought that counts.

As for the shadow jury, it was agreed they would stay together for one more night at the Mountain Greenery Motel in Branson, then come back tomorrow to join the defense team in awaiting the verdict. There were also more debriefings to be done on the morrow — in case worse came to worst and appeals had to be readied. Did any of the shadows feel improper manipulation had been practiced by the prosecutors? The judge? The prosecution’s witnesses? In the meantime, for tonight they could still eat and sleep at Ray Jones’s expense; enjoy.

In his room at the Mountain Greenery, Bob Sangster, the false Jock O’Shanley, sequestered himself from his roommate by going into the bathroom, where he once again removed the cassette recorder from his side and extricated the tape, which now included the results of the first shadow-jury vote. Then he went out into the hall, where he did not make the expected rendezvous with Laverne Slagei.

Hmmmmm. Bob roamed the portion of the motel set aside for the shadows, and when at last he saw another maid and asked her about Laverne, she merely said, “Laverne isn’t around.”

“But she was here this morning” — when she’d given Bob the then-blank tape he wanted to pass back.

“I think she got sick or something,” the maid said, and went back to her work.

Unfortunate, Bob thought, but not critical. There was still plenty of space on this tape for whatever might happen tomorrow. So thinking, he went back to his room, hid the tape in his underwear drawer, put on a bathing suit, and went for a swim, followed by dinner, followed by cribbage with another juror, followed by a showing of Support Your Local Sheriff, followed by sleep, followed by a rude awakening at 4:30 in the morning by rough-handed Missouri state troopers here to make an arrest. They were delighted to find that Bob Sangster still had that tape in his possession.

Ten minutes earlier. Boy Cartwright and his guest for the night. Erica Jacke, had been awakened just as rudely, at the former hospitality suite in the Palace Inn, by even more state troopers.

“Who are they?” wailed Boy, pointing a flabby finger at the Trend photographers popping flashcubes in his face.

“None of your business,” a trooper said, and jabbed Boy painfully in the side with a gloved knuckle. “You wanna get dressed, or you wanna come along like you are?”

The residents of the 1000 block of Cherokee (nearly its only block, by the way) were not surprised to be awakened at 4:30 in the morning by many glaring lights and blaring sirens, and not at all surprised when the center of this sudden official attention turned out to be their new neighbors at 1023. A few of the good residents had already phoned their suspicions about those new people to the local police, with, as usual, not a damn thing being done, grumble, grumble. Their suspicions had generally involved Satanists, Arab terrorists planning to blow up Table Rock Dam, a coven of child abusers from out East, or possibly — though no motorcycles had as yet been seen — Hell’s Angels.

Whatever the deviltry would turn out to be, it had been clear from the instant of the arrival of those people that they were up to no good. They took all the parking spaces on the block, for one thing, including right in front of your own house. And there were so many of them, and they looked so strange, not like normal people at all, who, as everybody knows, are fish-belly white, drastically overweight, clad in pastel polyester, and shyly smiling unless your back is turned. These people weren’t normal in any particular, weren’t like us, and therefore must be up to no good.

As a result, the arrival of several platoons of state troopers at arrest hour — 4:30 A.M. — was no surprise and no inconvenience to the neighborhood, but was, in fact, a source of gratification. Even more gratification was provided by those photographers, who, having been rousted from sleep under tables, chose to resist arrest for a while. It was a fine hullabaloo over there, well lit, intelligently cast, imaginatively costumed, with good production values all around and the kind of minimal script that works best in an action flick of this sort. Afterward, a lot of residents could kick themselves that they hadn’t taped it.

(And much afterward, there was a moment of bewilderment when it was learned by some of the residents that those people had, in fact, been employees of their favorite newspaper. Ah well, not everything is understandable in this life. Think about something else.)

At 5:15 that same morning, the phone rang in a dark and pleasantly musky motel room. Jack awoke first and rolled over Sara (who then awoke) to answer the phone, saying, “Yuh?” Then he said, “Ah.” Then he said, “Oh ho.” Then he said, “Mmmm.” Then he said, “Right,” and hung up. Rolling back over Sara to his side of the bed, still in the dark, he said, “My story’s just about closed up. How’s yours?”

“The jury’s still out,” Sara said, and went back to sleep.