“I still have one. I just say it’s our job to ask certain questions and not just rush into a verdict so we can get home more quickly.”
Margaret Rayburn happened to be one of the two jurors who had misrepresented their objectivity during the process of selection. Having heard of Esther Mencken through a colleague who taught at Orrie’s school, she knew the woman’s reputation as a slut. And Vincent Cardone, a plumber, had failed to reveal that he had done some work for E.G. Mencken, years back, in the squalor of Rivertown, and had never been paid. His resentment was such that he did not worry about the consequences of being found out: he was in the right.
Jerry Baum, whose thickset physique seemed at odds with his profession as an accountant, wrinkled his nose at Perkins, across the table from him. “You don’t mean you want to send the boy to prison?” Others made sounds of disapproval.
It was Harry Warnicke who responded. “No, of course not. But suppose we let him off entirely. Suppose he goes on to live a perfectly decent life for years. We’d be glad to hear that. I know I would. I’d like to keep tabs on a fellow whose fate I had something to do with. I’d feel responsible for him in a way. I’d sure want him to keep out of trouble, to do real well. Poor kid!” He looked at Margaret Rayburn. “I agree with you he’s suffered plenty. But what about the rest of society? If he’s capable of flying off the handle and shooting someone supposedly by accident… I don’t want to send him to jail, but shouldn’t we do something? Just think how we will feel if he might do it again, many years from now.”
Miss Rayburn shook her trim head. “All of this is theoretical, Who knows what anybody will do in the future? You’re just playing with words. This boy has his life to live, and without the help of any adult relations. Then there’s the little sister to think of.”
“Speaking of her,” said Perkins, “don’t you think it’s funny Pollo never put her on the stand?”
“Orrie said he was alone with those two. His sister wasn’t there.”
“And you believe that?”
Miss Rayburn set her teeth. “You know better? Were you there?”
Two of the jurors, a young single woman and a married man a few years older, had developed a romantic interest in each other and yearned for a verdict to be reached so that they could leave the courthouse. Neither contributed to the discussion except to murmur an assent to every argument in favor of total acquittal.
Sally T. Hemphill, the fourth woman on the panel, had lately served in the Women’s Army Corps, rising to the rank of Technician Fifth Grade in a payroll office. She had said nothing throughout the deliberations except to vote with the majority. James Donovan, who worked in a canning factory, and Carl B. Ridley, driver of a gravel truck, were also recently discharged veterans. Donovan had been a mechanic in the Air Force; Ridley, a combat infantryman who had been captured by the Germans and held in a prison camp for seven months, a fact the prosecutor did not know, else he would have excused Ridley by peremptory challenge, on the assumption that the man would have an instinctive bias against any authority that had the power to take away an individual’s physical liberty. Oscar Ventura worked in a dry-cleaning plant. He resented the effort by Perkins to be better than the others in intelligence and morality as well. But he kept silent because of his accent, which he knew made a certain kind of person look down on him.
Warnicke said, “Maybe if he could be found not guilty but given some kind of special —”
Perkins broke in, with a derisive snort. “Like let off with a warning?”
This offended Warnicke, who had after all been a partial ally of Perkins. He flushed now and told Miss Rayburn that he withdrew his objections and voted for acquittal.
Ames asked Perkins whether he wanted to be responsible for a hung jury. “Now, that’s unfair,” said the latter.
Ames raised his hands. “It’s your right to do what you will. Nobody’s taking that away from you. But it’s simply a fact that unless we arrive at a unanimous verdict, this will all have to happen all over again with another twelve people.”
“Maybe not,” said Perkins, with a slight smile. “I don’t think Furie’s heart’s been in it from the first. I think maybe he indicted the boy only because it more or less had to be done in a case of this kind. Maybe he wouldn’t bother a second time, and could save the taxpayers some money.”
“That’s just silly,” said Miss Rayburn in her most severe classroom manner. “You are just trying to get out of making up your mind. There’d be another trial, and those poor children would have to go through all of it again, and twelve more jurors would have to listen to these awful things and be shown those terrible photographs of the bodies. How can you say you’re a decent human being and let that happen?”
Perkins was wounded. “I am as decent a human being as you,” he cried. “That’s precisely why I have been taking my time. I don’t call it decent to immediately jump to some foregone conclusion when other human beings have lost their lives in a tragedy that for my money remains unexplained. It doesn’t behoove you to question my motives.”
Miss Rayburn closed her eyes briefly while saying, “I assure you I did not mean it as personal.”
But even that statement was put in a superior tone, and Perkins could not see it as an apology. He had been on the verge of capitulation to the majority, had resisted thus far only to insure that there would be some real discussion of the essential matter, as he saw it: two people had died violently under conditions that were irregular, disorderly, outside the perimeter of normal behavior: that was the reason for having a trial in the first place. But apparently he was the only responsible person on this jury, for he regarded Warnicke’s point as being capricious and exhibitionistic, whereas his own position was one of conscience. He intended to hold out until that truth was acknowledged.
But he told Miss Rayburn, “I didn’t take it personally. I assure you all I care is to see justice is done.”
Down at the end of the table, Jerry Baum groaned.
“All right,” Perkins said testily, “be cynical, if you want. I’m not.”
“Who’s cynical?” Baum asked. “I just think maybe you might have your own private idea of justice.”
“You people should talk about private reasons.” Perkins shook his head in resentment.
The comment alerted Vincent Cardone, who was suddenly worried that Perkins might know of the plumbing bill never paid by the late E.G. Mencken.
“Hey,” Cardone said. “Come on. Don’t light into us. We’re all in this together.”
“If you really mean that,” Perkins said, “then let’s think about the point I raised.” He was trying to calm himself by unscrewing the cap of his fountain pen and then screwing it tight again.
“I have thought about it,” said Miss Rayburn. “You’ll never be able to make me believe that Orrie shot anybody with malice.”
“But how about if Erie was fighting with his mother, hitting her? Didn’t Furie suggest that?”
“The child denied it.” Miss Rayburn assumed her coldest expression, lengthening her upper lip. “He was there, and no one else was who is still alive.”
“Is that your idea of conclusive proof?” Perkins asked, with a prosecutor’s edge to his voice. “It hasn’t ever occurred to you that people on trial tell their own versions of the truth?” He was still smarting from her questioning his humanity, and went for blood: “Are you that simple-minded?”
Having taken such a turn, the deliberations would continue.
14
Orrie stopped to lay the white rose on his mother’s grave, the earth of which still looked raw after weeks of rain and snow. The headstone had not yet been delivered: the Terwillens were preparing to complain to the masons.
Mr. Terwillen had discreetly left him there and gone off elsewhere in the cemetery, perhaps to a family plot of his own. It occurred to Orrie that he knew very little of a personal nature about the kind people who had given shelter to himself and Ellie. He should do something about t
hat, talk to them more about themselves. He must also be nicer to Paul. No one ever had such a friend. Paul had even gone so far as to include Ellie in his kindness, and Orrie was most grateful, being aware that, occupied as he had been, he had neglected the little sister who now had no one but himself in all the world.
His failures had been many, but could be corrected. His crime would remain what it was forever, though he had been exonerated by a jury of, not his peers but rather his elders: most of the eight men, four women were old enough to be his parents, some undoubtedly having children of their own. Mr. Pollo had expended a great deal of his notable energy in selecting these people, and went enthusiastically to shake their hands when they brought in the right verdict, urging Orrie to join him in the expression of gratitude. But Orrie declined. It was bad enough that he had had to tell the preposterous story about not recognizing Erie before shooting him to death. That the people who believed it were to be congratulated on their gullibility was too much. If they had not given it credence but proceeded to find him not guilty because they felt sorry for him, which in fact he thought more likely, his complicity in their malfeasance would be even more shameful.
“If they served the cause of justice,” he told Pollo, “then they did no more than their duty, and I’ve got nothing to thank them for.” They should be insulted by a show of gratitude. Orrie did not expect the lawyer to agree with his point. He and Pollo though associated in this peculiar intimacy had very little in common. He hoped in future to avoid attorneys-at-law, whose sense of morality, being essentially linguistic, was so basically at odds with his own.
He should thank this cruel jury for sentencing him to a lifelong term—of life? While no doubt believing they were doing him a kindness: another pain to add to all the others, for everybody was kind to him. When the verdict was announced, people burst through the gate to come to him, persons he did not recognize, perhaps even strangers, to wish him well, shake his hand, sometimes both hands, and there were women who went so far as to hug him and kiss him on forehead or cheeks. It was extraordinary that killing his mother had made him so popular. Even Mr. Furie, who had supposedly tried so hard to convict him (though, in Orrie’s secret opinion, not really), gave him a handclasp and said, “I hope you understand I was only doing the job that is my sworn duty to the citizens of this county and this state.” He wished Orrie a brighter future. The prosecutor seemed to want to be thought a kindly person: he showed that sort of smile. As Orrie was too young to vote, he had to assume Furie was sincere, but he wondered why.
“I used to think I knew a whole lot,” he said now, aloud, and there was nobody to hear him but his mother, who was dead, “because I got good grades in school. What a reason! But then I was only a kid. Now I’m as old as a man can be, and I don’t know anything at all. … But maybe thinking that way is arrogance too, because I do know I wanted in that split second to rid the world of Erie. But there’s the arrogance again. The world? Hardly. My world. That’s one motive I couldn’t ever confess to anyone alive.” Nor did he look towards Erie’s grave, at the far end of the plot: someone had rightly seen that it would be no closer to his mother’s. “And now that I’m the heir of everything he owned, you’re the only person on whom I would have wanted to spend it.”
A bright but heatless January sun was shining. The snow had disappeared in the unseasonable thaw, but the air had turned cold once more. Orrie wore the thin corduroy garment, no better than a long jacket, that he had been seeking to replace with his father’s overcoat when he found the shotgun instead. He was prosperous enough now, with his profit from killing Erie, to buy himself the belted camel’s-hair polo coat that had figured in his fantasies of winter elegance, no doubt derived from the movies. But though what he had done had been condoned by a jury of twelve decent human beings, he could not consider spending gains so ill-gotten. Even the pious thoughts of renovating the shacks in Rivertown while reducing the rents for the poor souls therein, which he had shared with the charitable Terwillens because he knew they would be pleased, seemed phony as he stood here. Could he play the philanthropist with blood-money?
No living soul was nearby on the bright but bleak morning in the garden of headstones, in which, in the absence of a tree or tomb for an acre, he was the highest eminence, short as he was and probably, having arrived at his current age, would always be, which meant he would likely go through life always looking younger than he was and thus attracting unwanted sympathy, particularly from older women.
He addressed his mother again. “I do think it’s right to get Ellie everything she needs. She’s got it coming—even now I don’t want to tell you why, unless of course you already know, but if so, then saying anything on the matter would be pointless. What better use for the money than to get her the college education she could not have gotten otherwise, even though her grades have always been better even than mine. If she wants to go on to study law, she can do that too, though I don’t personally care for the profession. But then maybe somebody like Ellie could improve on it.
“What I won’t ever be able to do, however, is admit to her I think she was right about you and Erie.” It would take a great deal of strength for him to continue, and he sought to collect it while looking up and away from the grave. By chance he saw Mr. Terwillen heading back. He had to hurry with what he had to say, but that was just as well.
“I think you and he did murder my father, and that was why you were fighting each other so savagely…. But I will always believe I killed you by accident…. I had to say that once. I will never mention it again. I will always love you and try to make you proud of me.” And finally he added, though he was not clear as to just how much he intended the phrase to include, “I will never get over it.”
On the way home in the car, while waiting for a traffic light to change, Mr. Terwillen turned and looked at him through the thick glasses. Orrie by now was used to what, in the early days with the Terwillens, had seemed a suspicious stare.
“I hope it will be okay with you: May’s invited this niece of hers to come have Sunday dinner. She’s a real nice girl. They live just over the state line. May’s brother Buster is a little stuck up, even she will admit that. But he’s goodhearted underneath it all. And the girl’s more like her mother, quiet but smart, you know? I think she’s a senior now.”
Orrie made a melancholy smile. “Am I supposed to be getting fixed up?”
The green light came on. Mr. Terwillen looked forward and put the car in motion. “No,” he said, somewhat miffed, “nothing is expected of you. She’s just coming to dinner, is all. By herself, because her folks are going into the city to see the outdoor-sports show. Her dad’s big on hunting and fishing.”
Orrie could not remember when last he had thought about girls, though in the old days they had been an obsession. He was now sexless and totally incapable of any new emotion: only in such a state could he live a subsequent life that would be blameless. He could not endure a return to hell.
“I’m sure she’s very nice,” he said, “but I don’t feel much like meeting anybody.”
“Orrie,” Terwillen said, his big hands manipulating the steering wheel, “you’re going to have to come out of it one of these days.”
“No, I’m not,” Orrie said defiantly. When they got home, he hopped out and opened the garage doors, then went immediately inside the house via the rear door. He slipped through the kitchen and up the back stairway before Mrs. Terwillen, at the stove, could turn.
Ellie came out of her room before he reached his. She spoke in the subdued tones of a conspirator. “You should see what’s downstairs.”
“I know,” he said impatiently. “Their niece. He told me.” He did not intend to dwell on the subject, for his sister was always too eager to make common cause with him against an outside world that had been notably benevolent towards them.
“Christ,” Ellie said. “A bleached blonde!”
It had been a long time since he had chided her about her language, having been
in no position to find fault with anybody else, but now he was moved to do so. “Will you stop using profanity? You just got home from church.”
As usual she disregarded the admonition. “And you know what her name is? Hermione, for God’s sake.”
Mr. Terwillen had said the girl’s father was stuck-up. No doubt this was an example. “Well, so what?” he asked. “My name is really Orville, isn’t it? Kids get stuck with fancy names. It’s not their fault.”
“So what do they call her? Minnie? Minnie Mouse?”
“You’re being nasty for no reason,” he said. “And really impolite. Why aren’t you down there, talking to her? You’re both high-school girls, probably with a lot in common.”
“Are you kidding?” Ellie said, making a mouth. “I don’t have anything to say to somebody oí that type.”
“You really ought to do something about the prejudiced way you look at people,” said Orrie. “How do you know what she’s like unless you talk to her? She’s supposed to be smart.”
“Then you go talk to her.”
“All right,” he said. “I will.”
But that was worse. “You will? Don’t.” She glared at him.
He realized she was just being jealous, but decided that to be forthright was better for all concerned. “I’m telling you for the last time: don’t try to run my life. I’m your big brother.”
He went downstairs and in the solarium encountered a girl who stood in the center of a cloud of gold, an effect that after a moment he realized was produced by the winter sun coming in the window behind her fair hair and white angora sweater.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Orrie.”
“Hi,” she replied in a voice that was both soft and luxurious, rather like her sweater. “My name is Hermione. I know that’s too much for a lot of people to say, so sometimes I’m called Sonny.”
“But Sonny’s a boy’s name,” Orrie said. He was about to add, with respect to her fantastic figure, that she was anything but masculine, but decided it might have an obscene implication. “I like your real name. It’s something special.” He remembered his manners. “Won’t you have a seat?”