Looking over at the defendant, Dewey saw that Jack Strawn had not changed much in the ten years since Dewey had last seen him. He was still broad-shouldered, trim-waisted, had a head full of thick, curly hair, obviously still the macho man he had always been. And apparently had the same temper, too, Dewey thought, seeing as how he was charged with murdering his employer with an ice pick.
The sounding of the judge’s gavel interrupted Dewey’s thoughts. “The clerk will read the jury’s verdict,” the judge instructed.
The clerk faced Jack Strawn and read, “We, the jury, find the defendant, Jack James Strawn, guilty of murder. We further find that it is murder in the first degree, and we fix his punishment at death.”
At the defense table, Strawn turned pale, shook his head in disbelief, and buried his face in his hands. From the front row of the spectator section, Dewey stared at him, thinking, You used that ice pick once too often, didn’t you, macho man?
Dewey’s thoughts went back to a decade earlier when he had covered another murder trial in which Jack Strawn had been the defendant. That trial, in Birmingham, had been for the ice pick murder of Strawn’s young wife. The prosecution had not been able to find the murder weapon, and there had been just enough reasonable doubt to allow Strawn to go free.
Dewey grunted softly to himself. The prosecution in the murder case just concluded had not found that murder weapon either, but apparently it had not hindered this jury in deciding that Jack Strawn was guilty.
“Let’s go, Simply,” said Dewey. “I’ll call in the preliminary story for the evening final while you type up about a thousand words for tomorrow’s sunrise edition. Then you can buy my supper on your expense account.”
“Uh, the assistant city editor doesn’t allow me to put meals on my expense account. Just gas and phone calls.”
“Well, that’s got to change,” Dewey said darkly. “You pay the supper tab tonight and I’ll use it as a test case to get that restriction lifted.”
“Uh, sure, if you say so, Mr. Taylor.”
“You’ve got a good attitude, Simply,” Dewey said, slapping him on the back.
When they were going down the courthouse steps, Jack Strawn’s lawyer hurried to catch them. “Are you Dewey Taylor of the Birmingham Herald?” he asked. Dewey said he was. “Jack Strawn wants to see you before they take him upstate to Death Row.”
“That so? What for?” Dewey asked.
The lawyer shrugged. “He wouldn’t say. Just that it might be well worth your while to come talk to him.”
After the lawyer left, Dewey thought about it for a moment, then draped an arm around Fred Simply’s shoulders. “You call in the prelim story for me, Simply. Tell the city editor—”
“I’m only allowed to talk to the assistant city editor,” Simply interjected.
“All right then, tell the assistant city editor that I’m trying to get an exclusive interview with the condemned man. Trying, Simply. Don’t tell him anything else, got me?”
“Uh, sure, Mr. Taylor.”
Dewey gave him a wink. “Good man. Reporters have to stick together; always remember that, Simply.” As he walked away, Dewey looked over his shoulder and added, “Pick someplace expensive for supper tonight. We’re going to make a real issue of this expense-account thing.”
A few minutes later, Dewey faced Jack Strawn through two layers of Plexiglas with a wire-mesh grille between them. They talked on telephone handsets.
“I’m Dewey Taylor of the Herald,” the reporter said. “You wanted to talk to me?”
“Yeah,” Strawn said. His eyes flicked nervously. “You think these phones might be bugged?”
“These hicks down here aren’t smart enough to bug phones,” Dewey assured him. “Come on, what do you want?”
“I want to confess to a murder,” Strawn said. He waited for some kind of reaction from Dewey. When he got none, he continued, “I remembered you from ten years ago, when I was on trial for killing my wife. You impressed me as a pretty fair guy. When I was acquitted, you didn’t write about it like it was some great miscarriage of justice or something.”
“Okay, I’m a prince of a fellow. Get to the point.”
“So I want to give you a story. I want to confess to a murder.”
“Which murder?”
“My wife. The one I was acquitted of. I did it.”
“Most people thought you did. Why confess to it now?”
Strawn leaned forward urgently. “Because I am not guilty of this one. I didn’t do it.”
Dewey’s expression did not change. Strawn swallowed tightly.
“Listen, man, you’ve got to believe me. I am innocent Somewhere in this lousy little town, there’s a real murderer.”
“You’re a real murderer yourself, Strawn. You just admitted it.”
“Yeah, but I’m not the murderer in this case, man.”
“Maybe you’re not. But why tell me about it? It’s just another variation of the condemned-man-screaming-innocence story. They’re a dime a dozen, Strawn.”
“Yeah, but what if you could prove it? What if you could catch the right murderer?”
Dewey pursed his lips. Now that might be something. That might be Pulitzer-prize material. That might be, at long last, his ticket off the goddamned Birmingham Herald and onto one of the big dailies: a Miami sheet, maybe even D.C., or — dare he even think it? — New York itself. Back to the big time. After all these years.
“What makes you think I could catch the real murderer, assuming I believed there was such a person?”
“Because I think I know who it is?”
“Who?”
“The victim’s wife. Leonora Trane.”
Dewey weighed it in his mind for a moment and decided it had possibilities. “All right, give me the whole story,” he said.
Strawn sat back, visibly relieved. If nothing else, at least someone was going to listen to him.
“I moved to New Rome from Birmingham two years ago and got a job on the Trane estate as a gardener. George Trane himself hired me. He liked his lawn and flower beds and shrubbery to look manicured at all times. When I showed him what I could do, he was very pleased. I am a good landscape gardener, you know? I have a real feeling for the work. Trane and I hit it off real good because he was so proud of the grounds and the work I did for him. Hell, he used to give me a bonus every time I turned around—”
“All right, you’ve got a green thumb,” Dewey said impatiently. “Get to the important stuff.”
“Yeah, okay.” Strawn stared off into space for a moment, then said quietly, “It wasn’t long before Leonora Trane and I noticed each other. She was one of those good-looking wealthy women who’s left alone too much of the time. The Tranes didn’t have any kids, and Trane himself always seemed to be working late or going on business trips; the only time he was really around the place was on weekends, and then he paid more attention to the grounds and the landscaping than he did to his wife. After a while, Leonora came to rely more and more on me for companionship; I was with her more than her husband was. Eventually, we started an affair.”