“Hey, Archer?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“I’m Jervis Donnelly. Hear you need a lawyer.”
“Okay. What do you charge?”
“For you, my best rate, a hundred bucks.”
“And what do I get for the C-note?”
“Got some ideas.”
“I’m listening.”
“Gonna plead you guilty and see if we can get you life in prison. That way you avoid the noose. A damn good deal, considering. I’m filling out the paperwork now. I’ll take fifty bucks now and the other fifty when the court approves your life sentence.”
“What’s your next idea?”
“You being funny?”
“You see me laughing, mister?”
“Come on, Archer. You know you did it. Just take your medicine. This way you get three squares and a roof over your head till you croak. And they’ll teach you how to make license plates. Most folks would love to have that deal.”
“Well, I guess I’m not like most folks, then. I came back from the war looking for something more than three squares and making damn license plates.”
Donnelly shrugged. “You don’t listen to my advice, what can I do?”
“You can get lost is what you can do. Go on, beat it.”
Donnelly’s beady eyes became beadier. “You need a lawyer, Archer. Nobody else will take your case. Me, I’m a nice guy. I got empathy.”
“But you won’t even put up a fight?”
“Hell, son, I’m not a magician. I can’t change the damn facts. And you’re a dirty ex-con on top of it. Plus, to me, you got a shifty look. They’ll give you the noose sure as I’m standing here, or this ain’t Poca City.”
“Then I’ll just represent myself.”
“I would not advise that,” said Donnelly gravely. “A man representing himself, particularly in a murder case, has not only a fool for a client, but a damn fool.”
“The only damn fool around here is the one I’m looking at.”
“Suit yourself, bumpkin,” groused Donnelly, and he stalked off.
When Archer was released, he noted that two plainclothes men were trailing him as he headed back to his hotel before he changed direction and walked over to Ernestine’s bungalow. He let himself into her house using the key she’d given him, went over to her shelf, and took out the law books she had there.
He walked back out and nodded to the pair of plainclothes dicks.
“Hey,” said one. “You stealing?”
Archer held up one of the books. “I’m entitled to them for my legal defense. You read the Constitution? Says it right in there. Sixth Amendment. It’s a good one.”
The two men looked at each other and shrugged. One said, “It’s your funeral, brother.”
“Yeah, we’ll have to see about that, friend.”
He returned to his hotel room and put the books down on the bed. He went over to the chest of drawers, opened one of them, and looked at the Dictaphone case inside. Fortunately, they hadn’t tossed his room and found it. Brooks probably thought he had all of the evidence he needed to hang Archer. He opened the case and looked at the papers he’d stashed in there. They were the ones he’d found in the crate at the trucking warehouse.
Both the tape and the papers told him a lot. He hoped he could put both to good use in his upcoming trial.
He stretched out on the bed and opened one of the books. He commenced reading and taking notes using some stationery and a pen from the drawer next to the Gideon Bible. When his eyes grew tired and he couldn’t read anymore, he started whistling a tune, a sad one he would perform after every battle when they were stacking, counting, and burying their dead. He’d fought for something he didn’t entirely understand but had nonetheless believed to be the right thing to do. That had been followed by a stint in Carderock for something he didn’t do. And now he was probably going to be hanged for something else he didn’t do.
He drank some more of his bottle, and then took the Dictaphone out of the drawer, plugged it in, and turned it on. This time he just let the tape run. He lay back on the bed with his bottle and stared at the ceiling, whistled his tune, and wondered what death by hanging felt like.
He stopped his whistling when he heard something brand-new coming from the recorder. He had never let it run long enough to hear this part because there had been a long gap of silence, which made him think there was nothing else on it.
Archer sat up and his feet hit the floor. He looked down at the Dictaphone and listened to the sounds coming from there. And then he aimed his gaze out the window and to the sky.
After fighting a world war, he had no longer been a God-fearing man, because he firmly believed a loving, righteous god should have just stopped mankind from committing that egregious sin.
No, Aloysius Archer was not a God-fearing man.
Until right now.
“Thank you, Mister Jesus.”
He pulled the shipping label out of the Bible, snatched up a piece of blank paper, and took about a half hour to carefully compose a letter. He ran down to the front desk, got an envelope, wrote the address down on it, and carried it over to the post office to mail it. The plainclothes men followed him every step of the way. After that, he went back to his room, lay on his bed, and prayed that what he’d written in that letter worked its magic.
But Archer also had to smile. He had stopped believing the best in people because he so rarely saw it. Now? His faith had been renewed. Just in the nick of time.
Chapter 48
“All rise,” said the heavy-set bailiff with a stern gaze and a widow’s peak etched sharply into his dark hair.
It was several weeks later and a goodly portion of the town of Poca City, along with the empaneled jury, rose as one inside the first-floor room in the Courts and Municipality Building. This included Archer, in his new suit and spit-polished shoes. His hat rested on the table in front of him. Next to that were Ernestine’s law books and some handwritten notes alongside the books.
A squirrel of a judge with rounded shoulders, a bald head encircled by gray hair, and a skinny, corrugated neck augmented by a wattle of flesh scampered out from a door behind the high bench and took his seat. He stared down imperiously over his little domain behind horn-rimmed spectacles.
“Be seated,” bellowed the bailiff.
The collection of bottoms hit the wooden seats, and Judge Theodore Richmond called the court to order in a high, reedy voice. He looked down at a paper in front of him and said, “Mr. Aloysius Archer, you are on trial for the murders of Mr. Hank Pittleman and Mr. Lucas Tuttle. And you are representing yourself, is that correct?”
Archer stood. “That’s correct, Judge.”
The judge eyed him severely. “Just so you know, it is highly unusual for a man to be defending himself against murder charges.”
“Well, Judge, me and the lawyer they sent didn’t see eye to eye. He thought a life sentence was a good deal. And I couldn’t afford anybody else.”
“Considering the alternative, he might well be right about that life sentence.” He turned to the DA. “Mr. Brooks, you ready to go on your end?”
Brooks, resplendent in a blue three-piece pinstriped suit and dark red tie, with cufflinks on his starched shirt and his hair combed precisely so, rose and cleared his throat. In an impressive baritone he said, “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Defendant?” said the judge, giving Archer a patronizing look.
“Uh, the defense is ready, Judge,” said Archer, half rising from his seat. As he looked at the stack of law books next to him, he suddenly reached out and tapped the volume on top.
If good fortune is ever going to shine on me, let it be now.
After legal proceeding preliminaries were dispensed with, Judge Richmond said, “Call your first witness, Mr. Brooks.”