Nat scratched his temple. "Well, I guess you could say we don't miss much, do we, Norris?" He chuckled, raising a matching sound from those in the room who knew precisely how little the pair missed.
This time Norris smiled and restrained himself from replying.
Collins took out a pocket knife and began cleaning his nails as if the following question were of little consequence. "Have you ever seen
"Pret' near every day. She was a waitress at Vickery's, you know, and our bench sets right there where we got a clear shot of it and the library and pretty much everything that moves around that square."
"So over the years you saw a lot of
"You bet."
"Did you ever see her coming and going with any men?"
Nat burst out laughing and slapped his knee. "Hoo! Hoo! That's a good one, isn't it, Norris!" The whole courtroom burst into laughter.
The judge interjected, "Answer the question, Mr. MacReady."
"She come and go with more men than the Pacific fleet!"
Laughter burst forth and Murdoch had to sound his gavel again.
"Tell us about some you saw her with," Collins prompted.
"How far back?"
"As far back as you can remember."
"Well..." Nat scratched his chin, dropped his gaze to the tip of his brown high-top shoe. "Let's see now, that goes back quite a ways. She always did like the men. Guess I can't rightly say which one I saw her with first, but somewhere along when she was just barely old enough to grow body hair there was that dusky-skinned carnie who ran the ferris wheel during Whitney Days. Might've been back in '24—"
"Twenty-five," Norris interrupted from the floor.
Slocum leaped to his feet—"Objection!" just as the judge rapped his gavel. "
Collins pointed out calmly, "Your honor, the reputation of the deceased is of utmost importance here. My intent is to establish that because of her promiscuity,
"By implying her fetus was sired in 1925?" retorted Slocum irately. "Your honor, this line of questioning is ludicrous!"
"I'm attempting to show a sexual pattern in the deceased's life, your honor, if you'll allow me."
The objection was overruled, but with a warning to Collins to control his witness's penchant for speaking to the gallery and soliciting answers from them.
"Did you ever see
"I seen her try. Whoo—ee, that little gal sure did try, starting with the first day he come into town and went in there where she was workin'."
"In there, meaning in Vickery's Cafe."
"Yessir. And every day after that when she saw him come to town and cross the square, she'd make sure she was out front sweeping, and when he didn't pay her any mind, she'd follow him wherever he went."
"Such as..." encouraged Collins.
"Well, such as the library when he came in to borrow books or to sell milk and eggs to Miss Beasley. It wouldn't take Lula two minutes before she took off her apron and hotfooted it after young Parker. I'm an old man, Mr. Collins, but I'm not too old to recognize a woman in heat, nor one that's been refused by a man—"
"Objection!"
"—and when Lula came spittin' out of that library—"
"Objection!"
"—she didn't have no matted fur that I could see—"
"Objection!"
It took a full minute for the din to die down. Though the judge ordered Nat's opinions stricken from the record, Collins knew they could not be stricken from the minds of the jury.
"Mr. MacReady," Collins explained quietly, "you understand we have to deal with facts here, only facts, not opinions."
"Sure—sure enough."
"Facts, Mr. MacReady. Now, do you know for a fact that
"Yes, sir. At least if Orlan Nettles can be believed. He told me once he nabbed her underneath the grandstand at the ballpark during the seventh-inning stretch of the game between the Whitney Hornets and the Grove City Tigers."
"Nabbed her. Could you be more specific?"
"Well, I could except there's ladies present."
"Was nabbed the word Orlan himself used?"
"No, sir."
"What word did he use?"
Nat blushed and turned to the judge. "Do I have to say it, your honor?"
"You're under oath, Mr. MacReady."
"All right, then—screwed, your honor. Orlan said he screwed
In the rear gallery a gasp was heard from Alma Nettles, Orlan's wife. Collins noted the eyes of the jurors swerve her way and waited until he'd regained their full attention.
"How long ago did he claim to do this?"
"It was the night the Hornets won seven to six in the top of the ninth when Willie Pounds caught a grounder stretched out on his belly and threw a scorcher into home for the last out. Norris and me never miss a game, and we keep the scorecards, don't we, Norris?" Norris nodded as Nat handed Collins a scrap of white paper. "Here it is, last summer, July eleventh, though I don't know why it was necessary to bring this. Half the men in Whitney know the date 'cause Orlan he told a whole bunch of us about it, didn't he, Norris?"
"Strike that last question." Judge Murdoch ordered as the weeping
Alma
was escorted from the room in the arms of a solicitous matron.
Above the murmurs from the gallery, Collins inquired of Nat, "Did you ever see
"Yessir, there was an engineer on the L and N Railroad who used to lay over at Miss Bernadette Werm's boardinghouse. I'm not sure of his name, but he had a bushy red beard and a tattoo of a serpent on his arm—Miss Werm would remember his name. Anyway, I caught 'em one day, in the act you might say, down by
Oak Creek
where I was fishin'. Naked as jaybirds they were, and when I come upon 'em, Lula she throws back her head and laughs and says to me, 'Don't look so shocked, Mr. MacReady. Why don't y'all come and join us?'"
From the gallery came a chorus of shocked female ohhs.
"Just for clarification, Mr. MacReady, when you say they were in the act, you mean in the act of copulation?"
"Yes, sir, I do."
Collins took an inordinate amount of time extracting a wrinkled handkerchief from his pocket, blowing his nose, letting the last bit of testimony sink into every brain that mattered and many that didn't. Finally he pocketed his hanky and approached the witness again.
"Now, let's go back again, if we may, to your very important job as a member of the Civilian Patrol. When you've been on patrol at night during recent months and weeks, is it true that you've repeatedly seen one particular car parked behind
"Yessir."
"Do you know whose car it is?"
"Yessir, it's Harley Overmire's. Black Ford licence number PV628. He parks it behind the juniper bushes in the alley. I've seen it there a lot, couple nights a week anyway, during the past year. Also seen Harley goin' to
"And you've seen
"Yessir, I have, and truth to tell, I hate to say it in public. Nobody wants to hurt a boy that age, but he's probably too young to realize—"
"Just tell us what you've seen, Mr. MacReady," Collins interrupted.
"Harley's young son, Ned."
"That's Harley Overmire's son, Ned Overmire?"
"Yes, sir."
"Tell us how old you'd guess Ned Overmire is."
"Oh, I'd say fourteen or so. Not over fifteen, that's for sure. He's in the ninth grade anyway, I know that cause my niece, Delwyn Jean Potts is his teacher this year."
"And have you seen
"Yessir. Right in front of Vickery's. She was sweepin' again—she always sweeps when she wants to ... well ... you know ... latch herself a man, you might say. Anyhow, young Ned comes along the sidewalk one day a couple weeks ago and she stops him like I've seen her stop dozens of others, stickin' that long fingernail of hers into his shirtfront and tickling his chest. She said it was hot, he should come on inside and she'd give him some free ice cream. I could hear it plain as day—heck, I think she wanted me to hear it. She always sort of taunted me, too, after that time I found her with that railroad man. Ice cream—humph!"
"And did the boy follow her inside?"
"He did. Thank heavens he came out again in just a couple minutes with a strawberry ice cream cone and Lula follows him to the door and calls after him, 'Come back now, hear?'"
"And did he?"
"Not that I saw, no."
"Well, thank the lord for that," muttered Collins, drawing a rap from the gavel but the approval of the jury for his reaction.
"But you're sure about Lula having sexual encounters with these others you've named."
"Yessir."
"And to the best of your knowledge, did
"No, sir, she never did, not that I knew about, no."
"Your witness."
Slocum's attempt to discredit Nat MacReady as senile, hard of hearing or short of sight proved futile. MacReady had an intimidating memory, and embellished his recollections with anecdotes that were so obviously real that his crossexamination proved more advantageous for the defense than for the prosecution.
When Nat stepped down from the witness stand, Collins stood to announce, "Defense calls Norris MacReady."
Norris stepped up, wearing, like his brother, his scratchy World War I uniform with the collar fitting loosely around his wrinkled throat. His high forehead shone from a recent scrubbing, setting off the liver spots like brown polka dots. Slocum squeezed his lips and cursed beneath his hand, then ran a hand through his hair, wrecking his rooster comb.