The Skeleton Box

TWENTY-SEVEN

Half the town came to watch the arraignment of Wayland Ezra Breck. By the time Mom and I squeezed between Millie and Elvis Bontrager in the third row of the gallery, every fold-down wooden seat in the courtroom was taken. Reporters jammed the jury box. Dingus and county coroner Joe Schriver sat behind the prosecution table to the judge’s left. There was no sign of Frank D’Alessio, whose campaign for sheriff appeared to be over.

Breck stood at the table opposite the prosecutor, alone. An orange jumpsuit bagged on his frame. Shackles bound his feet and hands.

I scanned the courtroom for Darlene. She was not there.

The night before, I’d gone home and moved an unpacked box from Mom off of the sofa and lay there with my cell phone within reach, waiting for Darlene’s call. I dozed for snatches of ten or fifteen minutes, waking amid dreams of my cell phone ringing, only to see it resting silently on the end table. At six-thirty, I started calling her. Each time, her phone went to voice mail. Either she was choosing not to answer or she couldn’t.

I considered calling Dingus, then recalled what Skip Catledge had said about Darlene-“One hell of a police officer, if you ask me”-and called him instead. I swore him to secrecy and told him Darlene had gone after Whistler.

Now I left Mom in her seat and walked up to where Dingus was whispering with Prosecutor Eileen Martin. When he saw me mouth the words “Where’s Darlene?” he turned away in what looked to me like disgust. “What happened?” I said, too loud, and the prosecutor gave me a dirty look and pointed me back to my seat.

I sat again, patting my coat pocket for the tissues I’d brought in case Mom needed one. She and Millie were holding hands. I hadn’t told her about Darlene.

From atop his bench, Judge Gallagher peered down through his horn-rim spectacles. He rapped his gavel once.

“We have before the court today a single arraignment,” he said. “Counsel?”

Eileen Martin stood, wobbly as ever on her high heels. “Yes, Your Honor,” she said.

“Thank you, Ms. Martin,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Breck, am I correctly informed that you have declined counsel?”

“I will take my own counsel, sir.”

“Sir?” Gallagher said. The judge smiled as he shuffled papers around. The residue of Brylcreem that usually made a circular shadow on his leather chair was gone. The judge had lost most of his silver hair while undergoing chemotherapy for an unspecified cancer. “I suppose ‘sir’ will do. But please tell me, Mr. Breck, that you are trained, at the very least, as an attorney.”

“I am, sir.”

“I assume you’re familiar with the old joke about the lawyer who represents himself?”

“If you’re saying I am a fool, so be it. I come to represent more than myself.”

“Well, I’m interested solely in you. What do you plead, sir?”

“Excuse me, Your Honor?” Eileen Martin said.

Gallagher’s head swiveled like a turtle’s. “Ms. Martin?”

“Your Honor, we’ve just learned of new information that could-”

“Ms. Prosecutor, this is an arraignment. The purpose of an arraignment is to extract a plea from the defendant for the record of this court. Would it inconvenience you to let me accomplish that before you tell me whatever it is you wish to tell me?”

“Your Honor-”

“Or are you saying the prosecution wishes to withdraw felony charges of illegal entry, breaking and entering, conspiracy, and second-degree murder against the defendant?”

“Not at this moment, Your Honor,” she said.

“That is a relief. Thank you.”

Eileen sat, brushing a hair from her reddening forehead. She couldn’t have been surprised. As a judge, Horace Gallagher was as unpredictable as cell phone service north of Gaylord. He ran his courtroom the way he saw fit, standard legal procedure and state judicial commission be damned. Lawyers whispered that he was unstable, but time and again, appellate courts agreed that Pine County’s circuit judge, pushing seventy, had charted an improbable map to the correct destination. The judicial commission nannied him on occasion, most notably when he ordered a philandering husband in a divorce case to kneel before his soon-to-be-ex-wife and apologize. But the gripes from officialdom seemed only to encourage Gallagher’s unique ways of pursuing justice.

He sat back in his chair, knitting his hands behind his head. “Your plea, sir?”

“Not guilty,” he said. “But I would plead so first on behalf of my grandfather, Joseph Wayland.”

A murmur coursed through the gallery. “Order,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Breck, I will ask again, what-”

“For me, sir? Also not guilty. I’ve never been near the house that was broken into, and I dare the prosecution to produce a single piece of evidence that I have. But I will be heard by a community that has steadfastly refused, for five decades, to acknowledge the injustice it delivered upon my family.”

The din rose again and the judge slapped his gavel twice. “Your plea is noted,” he said. “As for your grandfather, no plea is possible, although I’m familiar with his case, being a bit of a history buff as well as a lifelong parishioner of St. Val’s.”

I recalled the photo of Mom and the other spelling-bee girls with the nerdy boy named Horace.

“May I speak, sir?”

“Proceed.”

Breck cleared his throat. The sound echoed up past the seven oil paintings of dead judges on the walls to the pressed tin ceiling.

I glanced around again for Darlene, didn’t find her.

“In 1950,” Breck said, “the Archdiocese of Detroit endeavored to build a new church at St. Valentine’s in Starvation Lake. The community was growing and the archdiocese desired a bigger building that would bring in more people and more money, most of which, incidentally, would wind up in Detroit.”

“Your Honor, forgive me, but now I must object.”

Every head turned to the man standing in the back of the gallery. I hadn’t noticed him before. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered.

“Who is that?” Mom said.

“Listen.”

“Sir,” Judge Gallagher said. “Have you properly noticed the court?”

“Your Honor, my apologies, I am Regis Repelmaus, representing the law firm of Eagan, MacDonald and Browne, counsel for the Archdiocese of Detroit. We cannot allow-”

Gallagher smacked his gavel down. “Sit now, sir, or you will be representing the archdiocese in the Pine County Jail.”

Repelmaus frowned and sat.

“Mr. Breck.”

Breck continued with the tale he had told me at the jail. He’d begun to describe his furtive research on sexual abuse victims for Eagan, MacDonald amp; Browne when Repelmaus again stood.

“Your Honor, I must insist,” he said. “This is a slander against one of the most respected law firms in the state, against the Archdiocese of Detroit, against-”

“Are you deaf, sir?” Gallagher said.

The double doors at the back of the courtroom opened. Skip Catledge strode in and up the center aisle. He removed his earflap cap and stopped in front of the railing between the gallery and the bench. Dingus leaned over and whispered. Catledge nodded yes. Dingus’s eyebrows went up. He said something else, but Catledge moved to the railing while Dingus watched, incredulous.

Gallagher raised a finger for the deputy to wait.

“I beg your pardon, Your Honor,” Repelmaus said, “but Mr. Breck is seeking to use this court to engage in a smear campaign that has no basis in fact. The church, the archdiocese, and the law firm each have a right to counter these baseless charges before-”

“What would you have me do, Mr. Regis?”

“It’s Repelmaus, Your Honor. I-we would ask that the court adjourn until we’ve had an opportunity to depose Mr. Breck so that we may prepare a point-by-point rebuttal.”

“I understand your concern,” Gallagher said. “But this is not a civil matter, it’s-”

I jumped to my feet. “No, Judge. Don’t even think about dealing with this slimeball.”

I felt my mother’s alarmed face staring up at me.

“Excuse me?” Gallagher said.

Now every head turned to me.

“Mr. Carpenter,” the judge said, “I know you and your mother have had a difficult few days, but you are out of order. Please sit.”

“With all due respect, Your Honor, no,” I said. “If you want to put me in jail, fine, put me in with Repelmaus, who’s just as out of order as I am. But if you allow him and his clients the slightest opening, they will keep this case from being solved forever. They’ve kept it from being solved for nearly sixty years, and they will persist, Phyllis Bontrager be damned.”

“My God, Your Honor, this-” Repelmaus began, but Gallagher rapped his gavel three times and shouted, “Quiet! You will be quiet in my courtroom, Mr. Regis. And you, Mr. Carpenter, will sit down now.”

I’d said what I had to say. I sat. Gallagher turned to a uniformed officer standing to his right. “Bailiff,” he said, “please remove Mr. Regis to my chambers.”

Repelmaus flushed red. “Your Honor, this is unnecessary,” he said as the bailiff moved alongside him. “You will regret this.”

When the chambers door behind Gallagher’s bench closed, the judge addressed Catledge. “Deputy?”

“May I approach?” Catledge said.

Gallagher waved him up. Catledge whispered something. Gallagher replied, nodding. Catledge turned and left the courtroom.

“Mr. Breck,” the judge said, “I assume you still have the note your mother left in her will.”

“It’s in a safe-deposit box along with other documents, such as canceled checks from Eagan, MacDonald and Browne payable to my firm, for services rendered, right up to October of last year.”

“About the time you arrived here, is that right?”

“Approximately, yes.”

Gallagher took off his glasses, set them down, rubbed his eyes with both hands, put the glasses back on. “You have subsumed much of your life to this cause, Mr. Breck,” he said. “All for the sake of a dead man.”

“For the sake of a dead woman, Your Honor.”

The courtroom doors swung open again. The gallery turned as one to see. Standing on the threshold amid a small phalanx of officers, with an eye swollen shut and his hands cuffed behind him, was Luke Whistler.

Standing behind him was Darlene.

She was hatless. The top two buttons were missing from her uniform shirt, and the fabric was torn where her badge should have been. A wad of gauze was taped haphazardly beneath her left eye. I wanted her to look around the room for me, but she kept her gaze straight ahead. In her outstretched arms she held a plastic evidence bag containing what appeared to be a wooden box.

“Order,” the judge said. “Mr. Breck, you may sit.” Breck twisted around to see the back of the courtroom. His eyes went wide. Gallagher looked at Catledge. “Deputy?”

Dingus rose from his seat, looking as flabbergasted as I’d ever seen him. “Your Honor, I apologize,” he said as he glanced from Gallagher to Whistler and back again. “Deputy Esper was suspended as of last night and should not be here now.” I watched Darlene for a reaction, but her face remained a hard blank.

“Sheriff, can you please tell me what’s going on here?” Eileen Martin said.

He ignored her, directing himself to Catledge. “Deputy, your orders were to take the prisoners directly to the jail.”

“Yes sir, Sheriff.” He glanced back at Darlene. “This seemed relevant to the matter in court.”

“Deputy Esper is not even-”

“Never mind, Sheriff,” Judge Gallagher said. “Deputies, please approach the bench and bring whatever you have.”

Catledge prodded Whistler forward. Darlene followed. The box she carried looked to be about three feet long, two feet across, and twelve or thirteen inches deep. On the front was a hasp for a padlock, but no lock. The three of them stopped at the railing.

Darlene spoke. “Lucas Benjamin Whistler, Your Honor.”

Whistler stared at the floor. “I want a lawyer,” he muttered.

“He killed my mother.”

A collective gasp rose from the gallery. I handed Mom a tissue.

“Your Honor,” Eileen Martin said, “this is highly irregular.”

“We passed irregular about twenty minutes ago,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Whistler, you shall have a lawyer. But now, please approach.”

Catledge, Darlene, and Whistler walked to the bench. Darlene set the evidence bag in front of the judge. “What is this?” he said.

“Your honor,” Darlene replied, “I attempted to apprehend the defendant approximately twenty-five miles west of the border crossing at Port Huron. He disobeyed my instructions to pull his vehicle over, forcing me to-”

“She nearly killed me running me off the road,” Whistler said.

“-take more forceful steps.”

“Then she just broke into my car, clear illegal search and seizure. You’ll be throwing this one out, Judge.”

“Since when do we have jurisdiction in Port Huron?” Dingus called from his seat. “You didn’t notify the state police?” He jumped to his feet. “Judge, I must ask that you allow me to remove these people immediately.”

“I would concur,” Eileen Martin said.

“Noted,” Gallagher said. “Sit.”

Dingus started to say something else, stopped himself, and sat.

“Deputy Esper,” the judge said, “is it true that you arrested this man some-what? — two hundred miles from your jurisdiction?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” she said.

“And where did you get this box?”

“It was in the trunk of the suspect’s car. I believe it’s stolen property.”

Gallagher studied the box and the three people standing before him. In the gallery we waited, dumbstruck. I thought of Darlene chasing Whistler’s Toronado, forcing him to the shoulder in the dark middle of nowhere. They must have struggled, I thought. How else could she have sustained a cut or Whistler a black eye? I wanted to ask her what had happened, why she had decided to go alone, why she had left me behind. I wanted to know how she had restrained herself from taking even more drastic action against the man she believed had killed her mother. I thought I knew what was in the box on Gallagher’s bench, but I wanted to see it for myself, not hear about it days or even weeks on, when the state forensics guys finished with it.

I stood. “Your Honor,” I said. “We can end this now.”

Gallagher looked at me, his eyebrows high over his horn-rims. “Just whose courtroom do you imagine this is?”

“We can solve this case right now.”

“We can, can we? I’ll humor you-what do you propose before I have the bailiff roust you from this courtroom forevermore.”

I glanced past him at the door to his chambers. He followed my eyes. “As you say, Your Honor, it’s your courtroom,” I said. “But we can solve this case as well as the one that’s half a century old. But you will need me, and you will need my mother.”

I looked at her. Her head was bowed over her handbag.

Gallagher looked at Whistler and Breck and Darlene. He picked up his gavel and stood. “In my chambers,” he said. “Ms. Prosecutor, Sheriff Aho, Deputy Esper. All of you. Bring Mr. Breck and Whistler, please, and Medical Examiner Schriver.” He pointed his gavel at me. “Augustus Carpenter,” he said. “And Beatrice? You, too.” He rapped once more. “This court is in recess.”