“Unless there are any objections?” Bill asked, looking around.
No one said a thing. A few shook their heads.
“You need to take the oath,” the clerk said.
Bill hesitated. “To do what?”
“Uphold the laws—” someone began, but another who had served one term as district attorney interrupted.
“The prosecutor is sworn to do justice.”
“I’ll take that oath,” Bill said, and did so.
Samuel Maverick looked at the new prosecutor, then went to stand beside the accused. “I’ll defend. If John will have me.”
The defendant shook his hand, sealing the agreement.
A dozen men were sworn in as jurors. Others took seats inside l lie bar. They were all part of this. Without a consensus of opinion, there could be no resolution. Judge Jones assumed the bench and a more formal air. “Call your first witness.”
Bill said, “Chief, come forward and give your evidence.”
The chief of police walked slowly and suspiciously into their midst. No one cared about his suspicions. They knew this proceeding to be as legal as they could make it, whether they waited for a duly appointed judge or not. They would take their responsibilities seriously. No one seemed to feel this more strongly than Bill Harcourt, who looked sternly at the witness, ignoring the defendant’s troubled stare.
“Well, there’s the horse,” the chief of police began slowly. “It’s Enright’s horse, all right. No one saw him ride out. The horse returned with blood on his saddle. Mr. Lawrence has no alibi for the whole morning. He’s known not to be living with his wife since shortly after his return. Mrs. Lawrence is gone too, as if she knows—”
“Object to speculation,” Maverick said quickly.
“There are Comanches still about, aren’t there, Chief? Why would you not think young Mr. Enright merely the victim of an Indian attack?”
“No red man would let a horse go,” the chief said positively. Men nodded at that. “Besides, there are also the quarrels. Besides the one some of you gentlemen saw, Mr. Lawrence and Enright exchanged words and almost came to blows two other times, one of them just yesterday afternoon. Now, Enright may have taken clients from several of you in your absence, but only Mr. Lawrence suffered so personal a loss.”
They all turned to look at John, including the new judge. The accused tried to look composed.
“And this afternoon, John Lawrence returned to his office, cleared young Mr. Enright’s things out, and resumed his practice as if he knew the matter was settled.”
The accusation had been pretty speculative until then, but the chief’s last words made good sense to everyone. “Your witness,” Harcourt said.
Maverick had few questions, only establishing that the chief of police had no more evidence of Enright’s demise or current whereabouts. “Do you think that’s enough to condemn a man?” he asked, which was really aimed at his opponent.
“I haven’t rested my case,” Bill Harcourt said. “I suggest we adjourn this proceeding to John Lawrence’s office.”
The suggestion was unorthodox, but so was this entire proceeding. The law offices were just across the street. Within ten minutes, the offices were crowded. The jurors stood together against one wall of John’s own office. “I’ll call Henry Reynolds,” Bill said, and the young clerk, now lawyer, came forward shyly.
Harcourt quickly established that the presumed deceased had used this office in John Lawrence’s absence and had continued to do so even after his return. Disputes between the two men over possession of the office had grown more heated.
“And did you ever overhear any exchanges between Mrs. Lawrence and either of the two men? Come, Henry, you’re sworn to give testimony.”
A very mature look shot out of Henry’s boyish face, turning his eyes much older for a moment. Only Bill caught the expression. “No, sir,” Henry said staunchly. “They kept personal matters private.”
“Not enough so,” Bill remarked. He picked up a book from the desk, the same one he had handled two days earlier. “Do you recognize this?”
Henry nodded. “Mr. Lawrence’s ledger book.”
Bill held it up to an open page. “Like this office, not entirely his own anymore. Note the change in handwriting in the later pages. Please note also,” he said to the jury, “that the income figures show a prospering practice. More so than when John kept it. I’ll offer Republic’s Exhibit One.”
The book was admitted, and Maverick leafed through it, conferring quietly with his client.
Bill opened a drawer of the desk. His hand rummaged among the contents, and he drew out a pocket watch. “Do you recognize this?”
Several men did, from their expressions. “It looks like Mr. Enright’s, sir. He told me once he’d inherited it from his grandfather. It was one of his most prized possessions.”
Bill dropped it on the desk. “Yet here it sits. Does a man leave town and leave behind his most favored possession, as well as a thriving practice? The Republic rests. Gentlemen,” he said to the jury, “even if this case remains open, I doubt there will be any more evidence one way or the other unless Enright’s body turns up, and even that wouldn’t tell us much. This matter can be settled tonight.”
Samuel Maverick said, “The defense calls Martin Stenberg.” After it was established that he was the man who had said earlier he’d seen Mrs. Lawrence riding out of town in her carriage, Maverick asked, “Which direction was she going, Martin?”
“I think I said. North, toward Austin.”
“And she was traveling alone, with luggage?”
“Yes, sir.”
“No more questions.”
Bill just shrugged.
“The defense will call John Lawrence.”
Defendants were not normally allowed to testify in their own defense, since it was presumed their testimony would be untrustworthy. Bill pointed this out.
“I’m calling him for a limited purpose, not to deny his guilt,” Maverick said, and Bill let the legal point go.
“John,” Maverick said sternly. “Where was your wife going?”
“We’d separated,” John Lawrence said quietly. “You all seem to know that. She was going to slay with her sister.”
“And where does her sister live?”
“Philadelphia.”
“When she’s gone to visit her sister in the past, how did she go?” “To Galveston,” the accused said quietly. “To take a ship.”
Men, including jurors, nodded. The answer made sense. And Galveston was not north of them. It was south and east. “The defense rests,” Maverick said abruptly.
Bill Harcourt made a brief summation. “Luke Enright may not have been well liked by the men in this room, but he deserves justice. He had increasingly violent quarrels with the defendant, then his horse turns up showing blood. Outside the courthouse, no more evidence than that would be needed. The young man had everything he wanted here. Why would he leave so abruptly? No, men, the chief of police is right. I ask for your guilty verdict.” Samuel Maverick had been looking over the two exhibits. When his turn came, he stood with both in his hands. Walking toward the jury box, he leafed through the ledger book. After the last page Harcourt had displayed, there were two dozen blank pages. But at the back, the new handwriting began again, with different names and figures. “Mr. Enright was apparently keeping track of more than his profits. These pages seem to be in a cipher. What did he want to hide? Which raises the question, what do we know about him? What did he leave behind, in Austin or elsewhere? When a man changes cities of residence, it’s usually to escape something. I suggest, gentlemen, when a man writes different figures in a different place in the book, he’s recording something other than what’s recorded in the front. Could it be debts? Look at these numbers. They far outweigh the meager earnings in front. Could it be that the people to whom Enright owed these debts had caught up to him, or were about to do so? There’s a reason for a man to light out in a hurry.