John D. MacDonald
Ring Around the Redhead
The prosecuting attorney was a lean specimen named Amery Heater. The buildup given the murder trial by the newspapers had resulted in a welter of open-mouthed citizens who jammed the golden oak courtroom.
Bill Maloney, the defendant, was sleepy and bored. He knew he had no business being bored. Not with twelve righteous citizens who, under the spell of Amery Heater’s quiet, confidential oratory were beginning to look at Maloney as though he were a fiend among fiends.
The August heat was intense and flies buzzed around the upper sashes of the dusty windows. The city sounds drifted in the open windows, making it necessary for Amery Heater to raise his voice now and again.
But though Bill Maloney was bored, he was also restless and worried. Mostly he was worried about Justin Marks, his own lawyer.
Marks cared but little for this case. But, being Bill Maloney’s best friend, he couldn’t very well refuse to handle it. Justin Marks was a proper young man with a Dewey mustache and frequent daydreams about Justice Marks of the Supreme Court. He somehow didn’t feel that the Maloney case was going to help him very much.
Particularly with the very able Amery Heater intent on getting the death penalty.
The judge was a puffy old citizen with signs of many good years at the brandy bottle, the hundreds of gallons of which surprisingly had done nothing to dim the keenness of eye or brain.
Bill Maloney was a muscular young man with a round face, a round chin and a look of sleepy skepticism. A sheaf of his coarse, corn-colored hair jutted out over his forehead. His eyes were clear, deep blue.
He stifled a yawn, remembering what Justin Marks had told him about making a good impression on the jury. He singled out a plump lady juror in the front row and winked solemnly at her. She lifted her chin with an audible sniff.
No dice there. Might as well listen to Amery Heater.
“...and we, the prosecution, intend to prove that on the evening of July tenth, William Howard Maloney did murderously attack his neighbor, James Finch and did kill James Finch by crushing his skull. We intend to prove there was a serious dispute between these men, a dispute that had continued for some time. We further intend to prove that the cause of this dispute was the dissolute life being led by the defendant”
Amery Heater droned on and on. The room was too hot. Bill Maloney slouched in his chair and yawned. He jumped when Justin Marks hissed at him. Then he remembered that he had yawned and he smiled placatingly at the jury. Several of them looked away, hurriedly.
Fat little Doctor Koobie took the stand. He was sworn in and Amery Heater, polite and respectful, asked questions which established Koobie’s name, profession and presence at the scene of the “murder” some fifty minutes after it had taken place.
“And now, Dr. Koobie, would you please describe in your own words exactly what you found.”
Koobie hitched himself in his chair, pulled his trousers up a little over his chubby knees and said, “No need to make this technical. I was standing out by the hedge between the two houses. I was on Jim Finch’s side of the hedge. There was a big smear of blood around. Some of it was spattered on the hedge. Barberry, I think. On the ground there was some hunks of brain tissue, none of them bigger than a dime. Also a piece of scalp maybe two inches square. Had Jim’s hair on it all right. Proved that in the lab. Also found some pieces of bone. Not many.” He smiled peacefully. “Guess old Jim is dead all right. No question of that. Blood was his and the hair was his.”
Three jurors swallowed visibly and a fourth began to fan himself vigorously.
Koobie answered a few other questions and then Justin Marks took over the cross-examination.
“What would you say kilted Jim Finch?”
Many people gasped at the question, having assumed that the defence would be that, lacking a body, there was no murder.
Koobie put a fat finger in the corner of his mouth, took it out again. “Couldn’t rightly say.”
“Could a blow from a club or similar weapon have done it?”
“Good Lord, no! Man’s head is a pretty durable thing. You’d have to back him up against a solid concrete wall and bust him with a full swing with a baseball bat and you still wouldn’t do that much hurt. Jim was standing right out in the open.”
“Dr. Koobie, imagine a pair of pliers ten feet long and porportionately thick. If a pair of pliers like that were to have grabbed Mr. Finch by the head, smashing it like a nut in a nut-cracker, could it have done that much damage?”
Koobie pulled his nose, tugged on his ear, frowned and said, “Why, if it clamped down real sudden like, I imagine it could. But where’d Jim go?”
“That’s all, thank you,” Justin Marks said.
Amery Heater called other witnesses. One of them was Anita Hempflet.
Amery said, “You live across the road from the defendant?”
Miss Anita Hempflet was fiftyish, big-boned, and of the same general consistency as the dried beef recommended for Canadian canoe trips. Her voice sounded like fingernails on the third grade blackboard.
“Yes I do. I’ve lived there thirty-five years. That Maloney person, him sitting right over there, moved in two years ago, and I must say that I...”
“You are able to see Mr. Maloney’s house from your windows?”
“Certainly!”
“Now tell the court when it was that you first saw the red-headed woman.”
She licked her lips. “I first saw that... that woman in May. A right pleasant morning it was, too. Or it was until I saw her. About ten o’clock, I’d say. She was right there in Maloney’s front yard, as bold as brass. Had on some sort of shiny silver thing. You couldn’t call it a dress. Too short for that. Didn’t half cover her the way a lady ought to be covered. Not by half. She was...”
“What was she doing?”
“Well, she come out of the house and she stopped and looked around as though she was surprised at where she was. My eyes are good. I could see her face. She looked all around. Then she sort of slouched, like she was going to keel over or something. She walked real slow down toward the gate. Mr. Maloney came running out of the house and I heard him yell to her. She stopped. Then he was making signs to her, for her to go back into the house. Just like she was deaf or something. After a while she went back in. I guessed she probably was made deaf by that awful bomb thing the government lost control of near town three days before that.”
“You didn’t see her again?”
“Oh, I saw her plenty of times. But after that she was always dressed more like a girl should be dressed. Far as I could figure out, Mr. Maloney was buying her clothes in town. It wasn’t right that anything like that should be going on in a nice neighborhood. Mr. Finch didn’t think it was right either. Runs down property values, you know.”
“In your knowledge, Miss Hempflet, did Mr. Maloney and the deceased ever quarrel?”
“They started quarreling a few days after that woman showed up. Yelling at each other across the hedge. Mr. Finch was always scared of burglars. He had that house fixed up so nobody could get in if he didn’t want them in. A couple of times I saw Bill Maloney pounding on his door and rapping on the windows. Jim wouldn’t pay any attention.”
Justin cross-examined.
“You say, Miss Hempflet, that the defendant was going down and shopping for this woman, buying her clothes. In your knowledge, did he buy her anything else?”
Anita Hempflet sniggered. “Say so! Guess she must of been feeble minded. I asked around and found out he bought a blackboard and chalk and some kids’ books.”
“Did you make any attempt to find out where this woman came from, this woman who was staying with Mr. Maloney?”