“Does anyone beside Marcia know you were gone only fifteen minutes?”
Harley shook his head. “She doesn’t even know, Dave. She was asleep when I got home. Oh goddamnit, this is a mess.”
“And they’ve booked you on suspicion?”
“Yes,” Harley said miserably. “I’m their big sucker.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Maybe we can work something out.”
It was one of the hardest trials I’ve ever fought. The district attorney swung it so that the jury was almost all women. If there’s anything a woman hates and despises, it’s a rapist — so I had nine strikes against me to begin with. The other three jury members were men.
The trial went for five days, with the DA pulling every trick in the book. He paraded all the circumstantial evidence, and he did it so well that every member of that jury could have sworn they’d all been eye witnesses to the rape and murder.
When he got Harley on the stand, Harley told the same story he’d told me. He told it simply and plainly, and the jury and the assembled spectators listened in silence. Then I began to question him.
“How old are you, Mr. Pearce?” I asked.
“Forty-two,” Harley said.
“Are you married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have any children?”
“Yes.”
“How many, Mr. Pearce?”
“Two. A boy and a girl.”
“How old are they?”
“The boy is seven. The girl is five.”
“Did you engage the dead Sheila Kane to stay with these children while you and Mrs. Pearce went out for the evening?”
“Yes.”
“Was this a customary practice of yours?”
“Yes.”
“How many times had you engaged Miss Kane previous to the night of her death?”
“We’d been using her on and off for about a year.”
“And nothing ever happened to her before this night,” I said. “Nothing...”
“Objection!” the DA snapped. “Counsel for the defense is attempting to establish...”
“Sustained,” the judge said wearily.
“Would you tell the court what Miss Kane looked like, please?”
Harley hesitated. “I... well, she was blonde.”
“Yes?”
“Blue eyes, I think. I don’t really remember.”
“Short or tall?”
“Medium, I suppose.”
“Glasses?”
“No. No glasses.”
“What was her address?”
“I don’t know. I drove by memory, I suppose. She showed me the first time, and then I just went there from memory every other time.”
“Did you call her ‘Sheila,’ Mr. Pearce?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And what did she call you?”
“Mr. Pearce.”
“Thank you, that will be all.”
The DA stared at me, and then he shrugged. I suppose he wondered what I was trying to do. It was so simple that it probably evaded him. I was simply trying to show that no lust had ever crossed Harley Pearce’s mind or heart. He couldn’t even describe the dead girl well. He did not know her address. They maintained a strictly adult to adolescent relationship. Sheila and Mr. Pearce.
The DA called his next witness, the bartender at the Flamingo, the bar Harley had stopped at to buy his cigarettes. The bartender said he always watched the door during the floorshow. He’d known of a lot of bars that had been held up during floorshows, when no one was paying attention to the bar or the cash register. So he always kept a close watch, and he’d have noticed anyone who came in that night. He had not seen Harley Pearce enter. The DA smiled and turned the man over to me.
“What time does the floorshow start at the Flamingo?” I asked.
“Ten minutes to twelve, sir,” he said.
“Do you serve many drinks while the floorshow is on?”
“No, sir. Most everyone is at their tables, watching the show.”
“And are we to understand that you keep a constant watch on the door during that time? I mean, since you are not serving drinks.”
“Objection,” the DA said, rising.
“Overruled,” the judge answered. “Proceed.”
“Is that what you do during the show?” I repeated.
“Well... I guess I look at the show, too. On and off, I mean. But I watch the door mostly. A lot of robberies...”
“Watch the cigarette machine?”
“Well, no, sir.”
“Then it is likely that someone did enter, stop at the machine, and leave, all while you were taking one of your periodic looks at the show?”
“Well...”
“Did you see me standing at the bar that night?”
The bartender blinked his eyes. “You, sir?”
“Yes, me. Standing near the blonde in the mink stole. I was drinking a Tom Collins when the show started. Did you see me?”
“I... I don’t recall, sir. I mean...”
“I was there! Did you see me?”
“Objection!” the DA said. “Counsel for the defense is perjuring...”
“Did you see me?”
“Near... near the blonde, sir?”
“Yes, near the blonde. Did you or didn’t you?”
“Well, there was a blonde, and if you say you was standing near her... I mean, I don’t remember, but...”
“Then you did see me?”
“I... I don’t remember, sir.”
“I wasn’t there! But if you couldn’t remember whether I was or not, how can you remember whether or not Mr. Pearce came in for a package of cigarettes especially when — by your own admission — you could have been watching the floorshow at that time?”
“I...”
“That’s all,” I said.
I heard the murmurs in the courtroom, and I knew I’d done well. I’d punctured one part of the DA’s case, and the jury was now thinking if he was wrong there, why can’t he be wrong elsewhere, too? Why couldn’t Harley have loaned the girl his cigarette lighter? Why couldn’t his story be absolutely true? After all, the DA’s case was purely circumstantial.
I clinched it in the summing up. I painted Harley as an upstanding citizen, a man who — just as you and I — was a good husband and a good father. A man who hired a baby sitter, the same sitter he’d been hiring for the past year, went out to a quiet movie, had a few drinks with his wife, and then came home. He drove the sitter to her house, dropped her off, and then went back to his wife. Someone had attacked her after he’d gone. But not Harley. Not the man sitting there, I told them, not the man who could be your own brother or your own husband, not him.
The jury was out for half an hour. When they returned, they brought me a verdict of Not Guilty.
We celebrated that night. Harley and Marcia came over while his mother-in-law sat with their kids. We laughed and drank and Harley kept saying, “They were looking for a sucker, Dave. But you showed them. By Christ, you showed them you can’t fool with an innocent man.”
He told me I was the best goddamn lawyer in the whole goddamn world, and then he started a round of songs, and we all joined in, drinking all the while. The party was doing quite well when Beth walked in.
She’d had a date with one of the neighborhood boys. He dropped her off at the front door, and she came into the living room. She said hello to Marcia and Harley when we stopped singing, and then excused herself and started up the steps to her room.
“How old is she now, Dave?” Harley asked.
“Sixteen,” I said.
“A lovely girl,” he said, very softly.
I’d been watching Beth climb the steps, watching her proudly. She was still my little girl, but she was ripening into womanhood quickly. I watched her mount the steps with the sure, swift suppleness of a healthy young girl, and then I turned to look at Harley.