Chapter 9
Spring in Whitebank tended to be beautiful and brief. The snow-melt revealed grass in hidden places. A million buds swelled on leafless trees and shrubs in a change as swift and certain as puberty. People had learned to watch for the day, the hour it sometimes seemed, that was neither winter-chilly nor summer-humid-the moment of spring.
The year that Charlie Aiken presided in daytime court, the moment of spring came early in May. The time was morning and he was seated on his bench, wearing his black robes.
Spring was a warmth in his loins, an absurd sudden sense of omnipotence. He looked down into the eyes of June Ryan, a beautiful redhead who, it was charged, had murdered a young travelling salesman named Sanford Douglas. The lurid aspects of the case plus the extreme attractiveness of the defendant had brought the trial a fantastic amount of publicity within the state. There were reporters in the courtroom from more than a dozen different newspapers and one who represented a national syndicate. The news photographers had a field day during the early hearings, their cameras flashing continuously. Finally Charlie had asked an officer of the court to confiscate all flashbulb attachments until after court adjourned.
June Ryan was twenty-three years old, a youthful twenty-three, despite her admitted experience in the ways of the world. Her hair was a natural shade of red and beneath her white blouse, her breasts rose like two luscious peaks. Right from the start of the trial, it was obvious that the spectators were more interested in her measurements than her innocence or guilt and Charlie could hardly find it in himself to blame them.
The nervous little-girl smile she occasionally flashed made the circumstances of the murder trial seem incongruous. It seemed equally unbelievable that such a delectable creature could be a prostitute, a girl who had toured the bars in search of a customer on the night when the crime was committed. Sanford Douglas had been that customer and it was charged that while together in a mysterious girl friend's apartment for purposes of being intimate, June Ryan had administered an overdose of drugs to her transient lover in order to rob him of his wallet and valuables.
The newspapers were already referring to the case as "The Love Nest Murder" and "The Call Girl Killings." A national magazine was already preparing a sensational story of June Ryan and the murdered salesman. It was all taking on the aspects of a circus and the young redhead seemed totally bewildered at what was happening to her.
The seriousness of her predicament seemed to hold neither meaning nor terror for June Ryan. Her constant expression was one of confusion and disbelief and incomprehension. Charlie wondered whether she was truly as stupid as she appeared to be or whether she was an extremely talented actress. Lately, he'd begun to doubt whether he was still capable of judging his fellow beings.
He was still surprised to find himself on the bench for such a publicized case. The call had come in the middle of the night, rousing him from bed and Helen, a veritable stranger since the fateful night of the snowstorm, from a deep sleep. The voice had been that of Mayor Warren Bauer and the politician had wasted no time in getting to the point of the call.
"How would you like to sit on the Ryan murder?"
Charlie had frowned at the prejudgment in Bauer's query. "Are you serious, Mayor? What happened to Greenspan?"
"Forget about Greenspan. He'll declare himself incompetent or something. Well, do you want it or not, Charlie?"
"Of course, Mayor."
"Good, good. Be there at nine-thirty tomorrow morning and don't be late. There will be an army of reporters covering the case. We have to set a good example, Charlie. We have to show the rest of the state that Whitebank is anything but a hick town."
"Yes, of course."
"Good-night, Charlie. Remember, I'm counting on you to handle this thing right."
Helen had already fallen back to sleep by the time he replaced the receiver on its cradle.
And now he was facing statewide publicity, feeling horribly alone.
The case, he supposed, was a real feather in his cap, the reward for years of tedious service. With all this publicity, he might land on the State Supreme Court-or, if he made a fool of himself, a junk heap.
Al R dd was swearing in the defendant.
"Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"I do."
"State your name."
"June Ryan."
Incredible oath. How could anyone promise truth? Who knew the truth?
The defendant was on the stand now, shaking him out of his reverie. She pulled her skirt over her knee and gave him another confused and self-conscious smile. Incredible that she could be a prostitute.
The defense attorney, painfully young and inexperienced, was giving her a chance to recite the facts in the case as she knew them. They were long and tedious, and for the most part, already well-known to everyone in the courtroom.
Charlie listened patiently as the girl stammered through her disordered and obviously untutored version of the events leading up to the death of Sanford Douglas. In need of money, she'd been making the rounds of the local bars in search of someone willing to pay for her favors. She'd met Sanford Douglas, a total stranger to her, and he agreed to accompany her to the apartment she'd arranged in advance to use that night. The friend who owned the apartment evidently existed but seemingly had disappeared from the face of the earth, much to June Ryan's dismay.
Once alone with Douglas, June had undressed and prepared for their intimacy. It was only then, according to her statement, that the salesman exposed his true desires, an act of a certain sexual nature which she refused to honor. They fought, verbally and physically, making considerable noise which prompted a tenant of the building to telephone a complaint to the police.
The appealing redhead went on to testify that after the fight, Douglas seemed to calm somewhat. She left him alone, going into the bathroom to repair the damage done to her during the struggle. When she came out she saw him face down on the floor, a bottle of bourbon loosely clutched in one hand. A few moments later, the police arrived and arrested her as she was about to flee the apartment.
She disclaimed any knowledge of the drugged bottle of bourbon and explained her possession of the victim's wallet by confessing that upon finding him dead, her first thought was to run away, leave White-bank. She needed money to get away so....
The defense attorney was so inept that Charlie felt obliged to guide him from time to time. It was obvious that the jury was unconvinced by the girl's rather incoherent and compulsively blurted testimony.
By contrast, the prosecuting attorney was cruelly and cleverly merciless in his cross-examination. He exposed every sordid facet of June Ryan's part-time prostitution and B-girl occupation, creating for the jury an image of a totally amoral female. He bewildered her to the point where she admitted having urged the victim to have a drink from the drugged bourbon. He refused to let her explain that the bottle had already been in the borrowed apartment upon their arrival. Charlie repeatedly looked at the youthful defense attorney for an objection to the prosecutor's tactics but the inexperienced man seemed too absorbed in the proceedings to realize what was being done to his client.
The prosecutor hammered and harangued the girl until her expression was that of a small child being brutally tormented by an overpowering adult. She began to contradict herself, to further incriminate herself, to cloud the basis of her defense. Charlie had to fight an impulse to Call a recess. He lectured himself silently and firmly, aware that it was June Ryan's lawyer who should be feeling such alarm. If he didn't know better, he'd swear the whole trial was taking on the look of a railroading.
He looked at the badly shaken girl on the stand and wondered what it was about her that had prompted such vehemence on behalf of the county prosecutor's office. In his eyes, there was more than sufficient evidence of her innocence and yet from the way things were going, that evidence was receiving only the most minute of attention.
So pretty. So ... vulnerable.
Suddenly, Charlie Aiken was remembering two other cases he'd heard during the past winter, cases which had also involved beautiful women. The memory frightened him and shamed him and strengthened his growing belief that he'd become too weak and too obsessed with his personal needs to hold such a responsible office. He mustn't allow it to happen again with June Ryan. There could be no private talks in his chambers, no secret midnight meetings at motels while the defendant was out on suspiciously arranged bail. The white-hot glare of public attention was too brightly focused on the young prostitute for him to even consider such a possibility.
He noticed tears glistening on her lashes as she attempted in pitiful fashion to justify taking the wallet from the corpse of her one-night paramour. Charlie felt his insides flutter with sympathy and his palms perspiring with unwanted excitement as his eyes followed the uneasy crossing of her shapely legs.
He also began to feel sick inside, knowing that he was weakening, knowing that he was watching the girl with all the avidity of a hawk watching a plump young lamb. He wiped his face with a handkerchief, his mind blurred and out of touch with reality. He realized dully that the prosecution had finished its deathly effective cross-examination and that it was the perfect opportunity for him to call a recess. He did so dully, mechanically, and winced as the photographers raced into action, their cameras exploding at June Ryan as she stepped down from the stand. Then, without warning, the beautifully curved redhead pitched forward in a dead faint....
Al Rudd had not meant to wrestle with the photographer, merely to take the man's equipment as he would have lifted an unresisting weight from an uneven surface. But the photographer had resisted. In his excitement, Al was near tears. "Authority of court," he babbled at the newsman in his outrage. "Judge's orders. Let go. By authority-by authority-"
The photographer was dark, plump and sloppy-looking. There was nothing sloppy, however, about the way he defended his camera, nor about his clipped diction. "The press," he told Al, using one arm to protect his treasure and the other to hold Al off, "has sacred rights. You're the one who has to let go."
Meanwhile, at the front of the courtroom, a cluster of people had gathered around June Ryan, cutting off Al's view. The noise was shocking, an affront to the dignity of the law.
"Behave," Al ordered the cameraman, his voice pitched too high. "You crums from out of state-why bother us? Swell little town, never had any trouble, all of a sudden-"
Suddenly he realized that the photographer was ignoring him, that the man was holding onto the camera without even looking at it. The other photographers, whose stance and expressions had suggested they might come to their colleague's assistance if necessary, also forgot Al Rudd. A murmur passed among them as they looked toward the back of the courtroom.
Al followed the direction of their concentrated attention and at first saw only a mass of swirling and pushing spectators. Then he noticed a flash of butter-yellow hair amidst the throng and his heart skipped a beat. He strained his eyes, standing on his toes, to get a better look at the girl in the dark glasses, the girl who was leaving the courtroom arm in arm with a tall and dark and impeccably dressed gentleman.
He heard one of the photographers speak a name. Marty Jex.
Al Rudd ignored it, paying attention only to the thinly disguised features of the young and beautiful Julie Miller. Yes, it was her. The cootch dancer, the one that had been on trial early last summer, the one with the juicy breasts. Julie Miller. Yup, it was really her.
He became aware that he was being shoved by the photographers and that they were moving as a unit toward the strikingly attractive couple. "All right," he mumbled crossly, "take it easy now. Court's in recess. Ain't no need to rush. Take it easy, dammit." They ignored him and he felt insulted, doubly so when he saw Julie Miller's lovely face turn toward him. No, it wasn't possible! Was she smiling at him? At him, Al Rudd? Did she remember him from her trial? Geezuz, it was true. The smile widened when he nodded to her in uncertain fashion.
He touched a finger to his chest, confused and excited. She nodded and tilted her head toward the doors of the courtroom. Outside, she was saying. Geezuz, she was asking him to meet her outside. And the good-looking guy with her seemed to know she was doing it.
Then they were gone, out the doors, escaping the army of photographers. Al Rudd let out his breath and shook his head in an attempt to clear it. What would a gorgeous thing like Julie Miller want with him? Especially when she was with a man who seemed to be as well known as he was handsome? Maybe she wanted to get a message to Charlie Aiken? Well, whatever it was, Al Rudd wasn't gonna let the opportunity to get another close-up look at those juicy boobs slip by him.
He darted across the emptying courtroom and scurried out a side door that led to the main entrance. He saw the cluster of photographers standing in the lobby, muttering to themselves and looking around in angry bewilderment. Al cackled happily, sensing that the dark-haired gent and the lovely Julie had given them the slip.
Serves them right, those big-city jerks....
Al Rudd paused on the building steps to scan the street. It took several seconds before he spotted a bare arm waving to him from the window of a parked car at the far corner. Wetting his lips, still afraid to analyze his good fortune, he hurried in that direction.
What was that name he heard? Jex? Marty Jex? He had to remember it so he'd make a good impression on Julie. He'd act as if he knew as much as those smart-alec photographers. The back door of the car swung open as he approached it and he saw Julie's magnificent legs and breasts leaning out toward him in invitation.
Oh, sweet geezuz ... don't let it be no mistake....