The Accused - Harold R. Daniels (best novels for students TXT) 📗
- Author: Harold R. Daniels
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“What did I do?” she demanded. “You can’t blame me for thinking you were up to something—seeing some woman probably. You haven’t come near me—I know that much.”
“This place had a meaning for me,” he said. “I used to play here when I was a kid. This is where Marianna—” He caught himself and finished lamely, “And the other kids used to come.”
She seized on the name instantly, picking it from all the other words he had used with instinctive awareness of its importance to him.
“Marianna,” she said. “Sounds like a Dago like me. Who is she, Al?”
“She was a girl I used to know when we were kids,” he said. He tried to divert her. “Come on, Louise. I’ll take you down.”
She had wandered close to the steep edge. She peered over and drew back quickly with a mock shudder. “Hell of a drop. What was she like, Al,” she said, taunting him.
“She was just a girl.”
“And you came up here to play with her?”
“Oh, damn it, yes. Now come on down.”
She was not through. Glancing at her, he saw that she was smiling maliciously. Lowering her voice, she asked slyly, “What did you play, Al? Doctor?”
When he understood, he took a step toward her, his face contorted. In his fury he slapped her twice across the face. Louise, stepping back from the blow, brought her shoeless foot down on a sharp pebble. To transfer her weight from the injured foot she took still another step backward, this time into empty space.
Morlock, lunging to catch her, nearly went over the sheer edge himself. Staring down he could see her body twist and turn and hear her thin, terrified wail. She seemed to fall for an impossibly long time before the green boughs of the hemlocks reached up to receive her. In that moment he was aware of a great rushing tide of revelation. That was how it was to fall, the body turning, the lips screaming. That was how Marianna Cruz had died.
He had never let himself think about it before. Now it was thrust on him. He sobbed once, and began to run down the trail. There was heavy undergrowth around the base of the rock. It tore his flesh and his clothing as he forced his way through. When he came to her, Louise was lying face down on a mass of detritus from the rock.
Her clothing was hardly disheveled and there was nothing gruesome about her appearance. She might have been sleeping there except that her body was curiously flattened, out of proportion. Morlock turned her over and then, without feeling for her pulse, he began to force his way through the underbrush to the road that led to the filling station. And Cory, sitting in his car, saw Morlock running, head down, unaware of the blood streaming down from his face.
As he ran Morlock frantically made plans. Louise had already cost him too much, in dignity, in self-respect. He would not let her cost him his freedom—his life, perhaps. She was dead. He was certain that she was dead so that there was no person except himself who could say what had happened on top of the rock. She had fallen accidentally. It happened all the time. That was what he would tell them. He would have to assume a grief that he did not feel, but he could do it. He must do it. He had a driving obsession to get her body away from the rock and this he could do by pretending to refuse to believe that she was dead. He would get someone to help him to get her away from there and at the same time add color to his picture of bereavement. Alive or dead she desecrated Abram’s Rock.
Gurney: I will recall William Davis to the stand.
Cameron: Witness will remember that he is still under oath.
Gurney: Mr. Davis, getting back to Sunday, May 20th, I’d like to ask you if you saw the car driven by the last witness, Cory.
Davis: I didn’t see any car. I didn’t see her then, either.
Gurney: Her?
Davis: Mrs. Morlock. This Cory already said he pulled ahead of the filling station before he parked. I was pretty busy. I did see Morlock’s car when he pulled in but I didn’t pay much attention to him. I knew where he was going.
Gurney: Tell us what happened then.
Davis: Maybe half an hour after Morlock got out of his car and went toward the rock, I was sitting in the station making out bills. All of a sudden I heard footsteps coming like someone was running—I’ve got gravel around the gas pumps. You can’t walk on it without making a racket. I got up to see what was going on and just then he came in the door. He was breathing hard and his hair was all mussed up. He had a couple of bad scratches on his face. He yelled, “She fell from the rock. Help me.” I tried to steady him down so I could find out what happened. “Who did?” I asked him. He said, “My wife. Help me, please.” I’ve got a stretcher that the Civil Defense issued me in the station. I knew that if she was hurt she’d have to be carried out to the road. I called the town constable—we don’t have a police force—and I told him to come out to the station and to send an ambulance. Then I went with Morlock. I was carrying the stretcher and I had a hard time keeping up with him. I asked him how it had happened and he said—
Liebman: Your Honor, I don’t think that would be admissible.
Gurney: It would be in the_ Res Gestae._ I can give you any number of precedents.
Cameron: I’ll have to agree with Mr. Gurney, Mr. Liebman.
Liebman: I’ll withdraw the objection.
Cameron: Witness will continue.
Davis: He was pretty broken up. He said, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” He kept after me to hurry. Well, pretty soon we came to where she was. I took one look at her and I told him that I was sorry for him but it wasn’t any use and we might as well go back and let the ambulance men handle it but he insisted that she wasn’t dead and we should get her to the hospital. So the two of us got her on the stretcher and started out of the woods. Halfway there we met Tom Harrison—he’s the constable—and Doctor Sedge.
*
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Alvin Morlock. Redirect testimony of William Davis.
Gurney: Doctor Sedge, the witness who preceded you has stated that you were present when the body of Louise Morlock was being carried from the woods surrounding Abram’s Rock. Would you give the jury an account of what happened from that point?-
Sedge: I am an intern at the County Hospital. I was on call on Sunday—the Sunday in question—and when Constable Harrison telephoned for an ambulance to meet, him at Mr. Davis’s filling station, my immediate thought was that there had been an auto accident. I got in the ambulance and told the driver where to go. When we got to the station, Constable Harrison was already there. The station was unlocked but there was no one in sight and we were puzzled for a moment until the driver looked up the road and saw two men with a stretcher. We hurried to meet them.
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 assumed 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 circumstances 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
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