The Accused Part 13

Gurney: "Them" being the accused and Mr. Davis?

Sedge: Yes. Constable Harrison took one end of the stretcher and the ambulance driver took the other. I told them not to stop and put her down but to keep right on going to the ambulance and I would examine her on the way to the hospital. It seemed to me that she was either dead or moribund-- Gurney: Moribund?

Sedge: Dying. I felt for a pulse while I walked along beside the stretcher but I could find none. She was probably dead then, although she might have been barely alive. In deep shock the pulse is often extremely difficult to detect. On the way to the hospital I was able to examine her more thoroughly. She was, by that time, unquestionably dead.

Gurney: From a fall?

Sedge: I would say from injuries resulting from a fall. I examined her at the hospital again. Among other injuries, she had a fractured skull and pelvis, several fractured vertebrae, one of which had pierced the pericardium, and fractures of the left femur and tibia. I a.s.sumed that the specific and immediate cause of death was hemorrhage due to the piercing of the pericardium. The medical examiner later conducted an autopsy and confirmed this.

Gurney: Were there any superficial injuries? Scratches or bruises such as those resulting from a blow?

Sedge: There were many such but these could also have been the result of her fall.

Gurney: Did the accused ride in the ambulance with you?

Sedge: He did. He had lacerations on his face. When I was certain that I could do nothing for the woman I offered to take care of him. He was in a state of shock; almost numb with grief, I thought. He hardly seemed to understand what I was saying. I cleansed his cuts and scratches when we arrived at the hospital. I told him that I had notified the medical examiner and that he could wait in the hospital reception room.

Gurney: What was his reaction?

Sedge: He seemed startled that it would be necessary to notify an official. He asked, "Do you have to do that? She fell from the rock. It was an accident."

Gurney: You spoke of lacerations on his face. Could they have been inflicted in a scuffle or fight?

Sedge: I would say so, yes. He claimed that he scratched his face while running to the spot where his wife fell.

Gurney: That will be all, and thank you, doctor.

Cameron: Does the defense wish to cross-examine?

Liebman: Not at this time. I reserve the right to cross-examination.

Gurney: I shall now call Police Chief Charles Stewart to the stand.

Cameron: I do not wish to press you, Mr. Gurney. In order that the Court may determine the future course of this trial, however, I should like to know how many more witnesses you intend to produce.

Gurney: This will be the final witness for the prosecution, Your Honor.

Cameron: Thank you. The witness will be sworn.

Gurney: Chief Stewart, you are the head of the Warfield Police Department, are you not?

Stewart: I am.

Gurney: Did you personally arrest the accused?

Stewart: I did.

Gurney: On what date and on what charge?

Stewart: Tuesday, May 22. The charge was suspicion of homicide.

Gurney: What specifically led you to make the arrest after a lapse of two days?

Stewart: Well, first let me say this. In the event of the unnatural death of a married woman under circ.u.mstances that are at all suspicious, a police officer will automatically consider the possibility of homicide by the husband. This isn't my own conclusion. It is the sum of the experience of many police officials. More often than not it is a homicide.

Gurney: But you didn't arrest Morlock on just a possibility?

Stewart: The medical examiner doubted the story the accused sold him. He notified the district attorney who got in touch with me since Morlock lived in my jurisdiction. There was certainly insufficient evidence to justify an arrest at that time. We talked it over. The accused was a teacher at the college. If it got out that we were investigating him for the murder of his wife, he would have been ruined even if he was innocent. The district attorney asked me to make a confidential check and see if there were any indications that Morlock might have killed her: motive--that sort of thing. I found out most of the things that you have been hearing here during the trial. On the 21st--the day after the murder-- Liebman: Objection.

Stewart: I'm sorry. I should have said after the death of Morlock's wife.

Cameron: That much of the testimony as involves the word "murder" will be stricken. Please be more careful, Chief Stewart.

Stewart: On the evening of the 21st I visited Morlock in his home. I had already learned some facts about the financial trouble he was in. When I got there he was cleaning the woodwork in his kitchen. I immediately thought of bloodstains, but if there were any there he had probably removed them. He had enough turpentine and paint remover on the table to do a good job. I still didn't have enough evidence to arrest him. I talked to him for a little while and then left.

Gurney: And you arrested him the next day?

Stewart: I did. On the strength of an anonymous telephone call that I received the following morning.

Liebman: Your Honor, I am going to antic.i.p.ate counsel's next question. I'd like a ruling on the admissibility of the content of this telephone conversation before any portion of it is brought out to the prejudice of my client.

Cameron: The content of any such conversation would fall within the definition of hearsay and would not be admissible.

Liebman: Thank you.

Gurney: Your witness, Mr. Liebman.

Liebman: Chief Stewart, when you visited Alvin Morlock's home you found him cleaning woodwork in the kitchen and immediately thought of bloodstains. You knew then, beyond any possibility of doubt, that she had fallen to her death miles away. Then why the rigmarole about bloodstains?

Stewart: I did not know beyond any doubt that she had fallen to her death. As a matter of fact, when I left Morlock's home I called the medical examiner and asked if it was possible that she had been killed elsewhere and her body later thrown from the rock. I was told that it was not impossible. I thought--I still think--it possible that there had at least been a quarrel in the kitchen. I think that removing paint from woodwork is an unusual activity for a recently widowed man.

Liebman: And the next day you arrested the accused on the strength of an anonymous telephone call. Is this a practice of yours?

Stewart: The anonymous telephone call was one part of what was by then a large ma.s.s of circ.u.mstantial and other evidence against Morlock. As a matter of fact, the person who made the call is no longer anonymous. I have identified that person, to my own satisfaction, while sitting here in this court.

Liebman: Who was it?

Stewart: The student, Cory. The one who drove Mrs. Morlock to South Danville on the day she was killed. I recognized his voice as soon as he took the stand.

Liebman: You could be mistaken though, couldn't you?

Stewart: I could be, but I'm not.

Liebman: Well, we'll leave that for the jury to decide, Chief Stewart. I wonder, however, if you might clear up a little puzzle for me. You have heard Cory testify that he drove Mrs. Morlock to Abram's Rock. Yet earlier you suggested that the bloodstains on the woodwork in Morlock's apartment resulted from an a.s.sault by the accused on his wife, and that he then drove her to the rock and disposed of her body.

Stewart: I stick with what I said about the bloodstains. I still think there was a fight and the blood was Louise Morlock's. But now that you remind me about the boy's testimony, I think it might have happened this way-- Liebman: Never mind the speculation, Chief Stewart.

Gurney: Objection, Your Honor: Counsel asked the witness a question. Now he refuses to allow him to answer.

Cameron: The witness will be allowed to answer, Mr. Liebman. I'll rule on admissibility when he's finished.

Stewart: As I was saying, the deceased had Cory drive her out there after a quarrel in order to patch up things with her husband. The accused made no attempt, as far as we can learn, to make any secret of the visits he made to Abram's Rock. He knew that she would follow him up there, sooner or later, and that way he would avoid the self-incrimination involved in taking her there himself.

He-- Liebman: Your Honor, I must protest the groundless insinuations....

The Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Direct testimony of Dr. Robert Sedge; cross-examination of Chief of Police Charles Stewart.

Morlock made the return trip to Abram's Rock with the filling station owner trailing behind him, carrying a rolled up stretcher. The man kept asking foolishly, "What happened?" Morlock, needing to think, wished that the man would be quiet. He answered, "I don't know, I don't know," hoping that the man would interpret his answer as the sort of frenzied distraction that he would expect under the circ.u.mstances. He had already told the man, back at the filling station, that she had fallen from the rock. Now, he supposed, he wanted a morbid description of the details of the fall. Excitement for a Sunday morning. When they reached the spot where Louise had fallen, the man bent over the crumpled body and then straightened with a theatrically long face.

"It isn't any use, mister," he said. "The best thing we can do is leave her here and wait until the ambulance comes."

Morlock had to get her out of there. He said in grief-stricken disbelief, "Maybe she isn't dead. Please help me with her. We'll have to move her out to the road anyway."

The man bent to unroll the stretcher. "All right," he said, "give me a hand with her now and we'll roll her on face up."

The body was oddly flaccid. The filling station man said, "She must be all smashed inside."

Morlock bent to pick up one end of the stretcher--the front end. The other man moved to the back to spare Morlock the supposed agony of looking at his wife's body. With the heavy burden between them, they began to pick their way out of the woods toward the dirt road. The going was difficult and Morlock, not in the best physical condition, felt his heart begin to pound with the effort. Wanting to stop, he nevertheless kept on while the sweat broke out on his face and bile rose in his throat. Every ounce of his strength was being poured into the task of putting one foot down, ignoring the pull at his shoulders and arms, and then bringing the other foot forward in its turn. He hardly knew it when other hands took the stretcher from him.

When he could think again he was in the ambulance and another man--a doctor, he supposed--was looking at him curiously. "Are you all right?" the doctor asked.

The doctor's eyes were intelligent behind his gla.s.ses. Have to be careful now. Don't overact, Morlock told himself. He turned quickly to look at the stretcher. The doctor had drawn a sheet over Louise's face. Morlock put his hands up to cover his eyes. He did not want to meet the doctor's glance. The intelligent eyes would be filled with pity, sympathy for the bereaved husband, and Morlock could not face them. The doctor said sympathetically, "I'm sorry. I understand that she fell from Abram's Rock."

Morlock nodded, not speaking.

The doctor was looking at him intently. "Look here," he said. "You've got some nasty cuts on your face. We'd better have a look at them."

"They don't hurt," Morlock said. "I can wait until we get to the hospital. Are we almost there?"

In the hospital efficient hands wheeled the stretcher bearing Louise's body through one door and other hands ushered Morlock into the gleaming white emergency room. "Might as well clean those cuts up here," the doctor said busily. "I'm Doctor Sedge, by the way. Then when we've got you fixed up you can sit in the reception room and wait for the medical examiner."

Morlock repeated dully, "The medical examiner? Do we have to report this to him? It was an accident," wis.h.i.+ng almost as he spoke that he had not acted so surprised. He hadn't thought about it, but he realized that there would be some sort of official inquiry. The question might have a guilty ring to Doctor Sedge.

If it had, the doctor did not show it. "A matter of routine," he said. "We have to notify him in the event of any accidental death."

The medical examiner came and there were questions; interminably there were questions before the official, a fat man with an overbearing manner, dismissed him. "That will be all, Mr. Morlock," he said pompously. "For now."

Morlock did not, of course, go in to the college on the day following Louise's death. He called Dean Gorham and was told that certainly, Alvin, we wouldn't think of your coming in for at least a week. Take as much time as you wish and if there is anything we can do.... Meanwhile, we are terribly sorry about your wife....

Later he called the funeral parlor. Oh yes, Mr. Morlock. A tragic thing. Please accept our heartfelt and so on and of course we'll be glad to handle everything for you. Ah--is there insurance? We'll be glad to make financial arrangements, of course....

Of all the people he knew, only Dodson, fat and slovenly and strangely decent, came to see him.

"Al," he said awkwardly, "I'm going to leave my car with you. You'll probably need to be getting around. Anything else? I've got a few bucks."

Morlock, deeply shamed, thanked him and saw him to the door. When Dodson was gone he puttered about the house absently. He was not at that time greatly frightened that he would be found out. Apparently Louise's death had been accepted as an accident. Well, in a way it was.

He had by this time almost convinced himself that he had not struck her hard enough to make her fall. In the kitchen closet he came upon the turpentine and paint remover that he had so hopefully brought home to Louise months ago.

For want of anything better to do--he planned to leave this house and its a.s.sociations as soon as he could--he brought them out. There was one board in the wainscoting that Louise had started to strip, leaving it half finished. Might as well finish it, he thought. He was sc.r.a.ping the old paint when he heard a knock at the door. Not getting up he called, "Come in." When the door opened he turned to see blue serge and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons, and then he was frightened.

"Good evening," the officer said. "I'm Chief Steward. I heard about your wife's accident. Thought I'd drop in and talk to you about it."

He was staring at the sandpaper and the paint remover, Morlock saw. It was silly to feel guilty about a thing of which he was innocent, but immediately the act of removing the paint took on a criminal meaning. He said fatuously, "Have a chair, Chief. I was just taking some paint off the woodwork. Something my wife started."

Stewart said, "No, thanks." He kept right on staring at the woodwork, Morlock noticed. Looking for bloodstains, he was certain--particularly after Stewart's next comment, "Did you and your wife quarrel a great deal, Mr. Morlock?"

Morlock answered, "I guess not any more than the average couple. We did have an occasional argument."

Stewart nodded. "I suppose," he said. "Probably about money. That's what most family quarrels start over. Was it money, Mr. Morlock?"

Morlock, faintly angry, began, "Look here--"

Stewart interrupted. "Don't be offended," he said. "I'll be frank with you, Mr. Morlock. Your wife died a violent death under circ.u.mstances that are a little suspicious. As part of my job I have been inquiring around--as much to protect you from publicity if there is nothing wrong as to find anything criminal in your wife's death. I'm sure you realize that we always investigate these things."

Morlock, who had not realized anything of the sort, said, "Certainly."

Stewart reached for the doork.n.o.b. "I'm not going to bother you tonight," he said. "Later in the week I may want you to come in and make a statement." And he was gone. Hurriedly, Morlock thought.

He went to bed but not to sleep. While the noise of the traffic, the rustle of humanity died about the old house, he lay with his arms folded under his head staring at nothing and seeing a body twisting down, down, down. Not Louise's body. Marianna's.

Cory could not sleep either, nor had he slept on Sunday night. When he had seen Morlock emerging from the woods with his face painted with blood, he had turned his old car and raced away from that place. Morlock's appearance, alone and bleeding, could only mean one thing.

He must have forced Louise to tell who had driven her out there, had helped her follow him. If she had told him that, he would have forced the rest of the story from her and now he must know all about him, Cory. G.o.d knew what he had done to Louise. Beaten her and left her lying there, probably, while he came looking for Cory.

Cory lived in a dormitory. Morlock, he knew, could find out where he lived and he would be coming for him. Ah, G.o.d. It wasn't fair. She had started the whole thing. Cory took an armful of his clothing and fled the dormitory. He started for Fall River. Morlock wouldn't think of looking for him there and he could hide in any one of a thousand rooming houses.

When he reached Fall River he felt the need of a drink. There would be plenty of time later to look for a rooming house. He parked the car and walked into a bar. There were people in this place, lots of them. Morlock could not touch him here.

After a time he decided that he might just as well stay here until dark, in case someone had seen the direction he had taken when he left Warfield and Morlock had found out. He was half again as heavy and strong as Morlock, but it did not occur to him that it bordered on the ridiculous for him to fear the smaller man.

Cory had long since recognized the physical cowardice within him and adjusted himself accordingly. He did not know the extreme of fear until he heard the news on the bar radio. Almost as an afterthought the announcer said, near the close of the program, "The wife of a Ludlow College instructor fell to her death this morning from Abram's Rock, a landmark in the South Danville vicinity. No further details were available at the time of this news broadcast."

When he heard the broadcast, Cory literally shook, and the bartender asked, "You all right, mister?"

Cory, certain that Morlock had killed his wife and equally certain that Morlock would kill him if he found him, said, "Sure. I'm okay." He spent the night sleeplessly in a rooming house. Morlock could not possibly know he was here, could not possibly find him, he told himself. But at each creak of the timbers of the old house, at each street noise, each footstep, he started.

The following morning he rushed from the place to buy a newspaper. He riffled through the pages, looking for a further report on Louise Morlock's death. When he found it, it told him nothing more than the news broadcast had. He was by this time near the edge of panic. He had very little money left; he could not stay here more than a day or so. He could not go back to Warfield, where Morlock was waiting.

He walked the streets until noon, seeking crowds to mingle with. He then telephoned a friend at Ludlow, unable to stand the uncertainty.

"Johnny," he asked, "anything new? Anybody been looking for me?

Johnny, recognizing Cory's voice, said, "Not that I know of. Where you been? You missed two cla.s.ses."