Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998
- Автор: Alexander Gary, Crawford Dan
- Год: 1998
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines/Crosstown Publications
- ISBN: ISSN: 0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998». Краткое содержание книги:
“If I put him on the stand to say the attendant’s death was unintentional, the prosecutor can bring in all his adult convictions in an effort to attack his believability. Once the jury hears his record, they might convict on that alone.”
The prosecutor was Donald Morrison, a fifteen-year veteran of the district attorney’s office. Morrison was more than competent, and crafty. He also wasn’t above using a particular case for his own glory, McGraw explained.
“With a significant case like this murder, he might want a trial for the publicity rather than a plea bargain. He has every right to try the case. But first he’ll have to make some kind of an offer to try to avoid trial or all the judges will hear that he didn’t, and he doesn’t want to provoke them. Every week cases are divided among the judges available. An unnecessary murder trial that ties up one of them affects everyone’s workload.
“We don’t want an indictment, and the best way to avoid that is to plead to the current charge. Second degree felony murder is a forty-year sentence; with time off for good behavior Hayes would serve twenty-six years and eight months.”
To Clark this seemed like an awfully long time to agree to serve. Certainly after a trial a person might get forty years, but to agree to stay in prison for forty years without a trial! That was appalling. He pointed that out to McGraw, who merely shrugged. He was a successful attorney because his face and voice showed only what he wanted when anyone was looking.
McGraw had spent some sleepless nights arriving at his decision, and it was a very bitter thing to have the harshness of the sentence pointed out by this fledgling attorney. McGraw was a thoughtful, introspective man, a loner. He didn’t like to be second-guessed. Maybe that was why he’d stayed a solo practitioner for so long.
“It isn’t your life or my life we’re risking if we go to trial,” he said calmly. “I will certainly try to get less time, but that may not happen. Remember now, what I’ve told you is strictly confidential. If they know our strategy, I won’t get the best deal for Hayes. I may not get any deal at all.”
Clark wanted to discuss it further, but McGraw walked away. It was too painful. None of his clients had ever received a death sentence, and the gnawing uncertainty about whether Hayes would die or live was eating at him. It was pushing his pulse rate up and keeping an unsettled, butterflies-in-the-stomach feeling in his gut much of the time.
McGraw’s first death penalty case had fallen on him before he was a lawyer. He was a sophomore in college when he was selected for jury duty. The accused man (McGraw never thought of him by name) was guilty, and so the jury found. He had killed an acquaintance in an argument over a set of mag wheels for his car. It happened in that time before senseless violence was so cavalierly tolerated. McGraw was naive and shocked by the crime. The other jurors convinced him to vote for the death penalty.
His life probably wouldn’t have changed if that had been the end of it, but his name was drawn as the juror to attend the execution. Justice was swifter back then. Just eighteen months after the man was convicted he was strapped into the electric chair.
McGraw was on the other side of the window looking into the death chamber when the curtain went up, thankful that the man had a hood over his head. When the electric current hit, the man jerked in the chair, strained against the leather bands holding him in, and... well, McGraw didn’t think about the rest of it any more while he was awake. Sometimes it came back at night in sweating, rolling-around nightmares.
Now at times like this, waiting for the skirmish, worrying about strategy and tactics, McGraw hated being a trial lawyer. Clark saw no sign of that turmoil. Nor would anyone else.
A week later McGraw got the notice that the pretrial conference was set before Judge Patrick Flynn, an impatient no-nonsense Irishman. McGraw told Clark that was both bad and good.
On the one hand, Flynn was very fair before a defendant was convicted, and he knew what a case was worth. He had a way of jumping on anyone who was being unreasonable and would pressure the prosecutor to make an offer. On the other hand, Flynn had a reputation for throwing the book at convicted defendants. He would also end plea discussions quickly if a defendant rejected what he thought was a fair offer. While some judges might keep the parties in chambers for hours trying to get a settlement, there wasn’t much bargaining in front of Flynn.
On the morning of the pretrial conference they set off for the courthouse, McGraw bareheaded despite the bitter wind and Clark hatted, muffled, and carrying the file. Clark was looking forward to sitting in on the pretrial. He had to stop by the Clerk of Court’s office to file some motions on another case before they met the prosecutor, Morrison, and McGraw said he wanted to visit an old friend, so they split up at the courthouse door.
McGraw actually wanted to be alone to think over his strategy one more time. His demeanor, as always, showed none of his worry. His weathered, lined face had been around long enough that it hid the effects of having been up since three A.M. He hadn’t meant to get up that early but the nightmare of the man in the electric chair had returned and, when he awoke, he knew there was no hope for sleep. He got up and tried to read, do a crossword puzzle, or watch TV. He ended up taking an early shower and getting to the office at six. He paced behind his office door until it was time to go to the courthouse.
When he left Clark at the courthouse door, he headed for a secluded corner of the law library. McGraw sat, not caring about the hard chair and the widely spaced dowels of the chair back. He closed his eyes and breathed quietly. People were a mystery to him. He’d spent a lifetime getting to know himself, but to his mind, he had constructed only a working hypothesis, not a true understanding. He still wondered how much of what happened in life other people understood though he did not. As usual, he didn’t feel ready for this day.
Meanwhile Clark was killing time. He’d gone upstairs to the second floor and walked to an office that had a twelve foot long window with a four foot wide counter that opened on the main hallway. Though he wasn’t short, it touched his chest when he leaned against it. He gave the papers to one of the deputy clerks of court, turned in the check on which McGraw had carefully filled in the filing fee, and was done with his errand. He had ten minutes to wait.
He looked up and down the hall. A broad tile floor stretched the entire length of the building, with windows at each end. There were also stairwells at each end of the building and elevators in the middle of the building. The courtrooms and judges’ chambers were one flight up, on the third floor at the west end. The district attorney’s office was on the fourth floor, also at the west end. That was the extent of his knowledge of the courthouse. He was barely past being a law student, and law students went to classes and law libraries, not courthouses.
Clark saw a statue at the east end of the hall in front of a window. He strolled down to look at the plaque on the base. It was one of the first settlers of the region. He went around behind it to look out the window. Then he heard footsteps and voices coming down the hallway.
“He wants me to offer manslaughter and twenty-five years? I can’t believe it. Barker knows it’s a good case,” said an agitated voice.
“He wants you to present that triple homicide to the grand jury and doesn’t want you to get tied up in trial with the Hayes case,” replied a second voice.