GAVEL GAMUT
By Jim Redwine
(Week of 20 October, 2014)
UNANIMOUS FOR MURDER, A NOVEL
CHAPTER SEVEN
Judge Eagleson drove slowly into the courthouse parking lot. He knew the only topic would be the murders of Arnold and Lorena Dalton. But he and his staff had other important matters to address.
As he exited his vehicle he completed the ritual he had unintentionally started after first learning of the events of October and November 1878. He found he had to look at the southeast quadrant of the village square where the old jail and the locust trees used to stand. And he could not avoid wondering every time if old Dan Harrison was still where the outhouse used to be.
But that was then and this was now and people would be looking to Eagleson to provide stability. A loss of such a promising young couple as the Daltons would cause the county shock and fear. This was not a place that expected or accepted interference with the myth of bucolic bliss. With the Ohio River on the south, the Wabash River on the west and miles of fertile farmland as a surrounding buffer, the conservative, virtually pure white Christian citizens of the extreme southwestern tip of Indiana relied on uninterrupted sameness.
Eagleson knew he should concentrate on reassuring his staff and the community, but as he noted with self-disdain, his mind often called forth unrelated clutter even at moments of intense stress. Instead of focusing on preparing for a possible grand jury or analyzing an application for a search warrant of some suspect’s home, Eagleson’s mind served up Posey County’s most famous doctor victim murder case. It had occurred almost two hundred years before young Dr. Dalton was drowned in his bathtub.
Eagleson tried to suppress his musings from 1990 when he had first published his theory that Mark Twain had used the 1818 Posey County murder of young Dr. Thomas Moore Parke as the inspiration for the murder of Dr. Robinson, “so young and promisingâ€, by Injun Joe in Tom Sawyer. The similarities of Twain’s fictional small hometown of St. Petersburg to Mt. Vernon and the grave robbing plot that led to both murders was striking. Eagleson’s familiarity with the Posey County case and his long time affinity for the writings of Samuel Clemens worked in tandem on Eagleson’s perception. And now, when he needed to be on task, he could not set aside the comparison among young doctors Robinson, Parke and Dalton.
John Eagleson had tried to exorcise this quirk of having nonsense or unrelated matter pop into his head at times that called for serious thought. But after years of failing to seal out extraneous notions including often insipid humor at such events as funerals and murder trials, he had settled for the ability to keep his oblique thinking to himself and his expression sober. For now he must gird his loins up about him and face the plethora of questions others assumed he could answer.
“Good morning, Judge. I guess you heard?â€
“Isn’t it awful?â€
“Who would want to hurt such a nice couple?â€
“What do you think Judge, was it robbery? You knew Lorena was pregnant?â€
“I just can’t believe it.â€
And these comments did not even get Eagleson past the Clerk’s Office. He still had a worried court staff to reassure.
“Good morning, Judge. Did the prosecutor contact you over the weekend? Are they going to need an initial hearing today?â€
“Judge, do I need to get the summonses out for a Grand Jury? How many do you want me to call?â€
Eagleson proceeded up the four flights of stairs, thirteen each, to his chambers on the top floor of his one hundred and thirty-eight year old courthouse. Another of his bemused thought infarctions that frequently popped up was the number of steps equaling four rendezvous with fate. As the Nineteenth Century masterpiece exuded symbolism, the Judge doubted this was coincidence. And when he had discovered his great, great grandfather had helped build the Italianate edifice, he connected with his ancestor’s gallows humor.
He opened the heavy, solid walnut door to his chambers and stepped into refuge and history. The furniture represented an unbroken legacy from 1816 to the computer on his golden poplar desk. Hand hewn cabinets by German American craftsmen containing artifacts of famous Posey County legal matters made the room a working museum. Eagleson recognized his long-time tenure there was but another passing through as that of the earlier judges who had made and preserved this sanctuary. But he could not fight off the non-sequitur thought that he was just another antique, albeit one not as comely as the furniture. Enough! Perhaps he should return to the disagreeable task at hand.
Eagleson hated meetings. They invariably ended up with one or two people taking on whatever the problem might be while the rest of the group, in this case, Eagleson’s staff, would have simply wasted another hour of their lives. However, he knew he had to gather the staff to reinforce the few rules he used to run the court: No talking out of school and absolute neutrality as to cases, the parties and attorneys involved. He called for his long time court reporter and asked her to assemble the staff in the courtroom.
When he entered his courtroom the staff was seated in the jury box. His four female court reporters, four probation officers, and his new bailiff waited until he spoke.
“Let’s make sure no one talks about any of our matters including the Dalton situation. Okay? That’s all. Thanks.â€
The bailiff and one of the female probation officers were still sitting in the jury box after the rest of the staff had returned to their work.
“Judge, is that it?†asked the bailiff.
“Yeah, that’s all. Just do your jobs and don’t try to be a cop or a media shill.â€
Eagleson had hired the huge young African American after his long-time former bailiff had decided to hang it up and work on his golf game full time.
“Jack, this was your first jury trial. I know you spent the week with Mrs. Dalton and probably got to know her. I hope you aren’t too upset.â€
“Yeah, Jack, I assume the judge told you what he told me last month when I was hired. ‘Keep court matters secret and show up for work regardless of the weather.’ But, Judge, are all your staff meetings so long? I didn’t have time to finish my vitamin drink.â€
Eagleson looked at his new probation officer as she rose gracefully and extended to her full height of six feet. Eagleson had been impressed by her resume that indicated she had played basketball at Northeastern Oklahoma Junior College in Tonkawa, Oklahoma. And her olive complexion and black hair indicated she might be of Native American ancestry. Eagleson smiled to himself to think he may have hired the Posey Circuit Court’s first African American and first Native American both within the same month.
Unfortunately for them, that was also the month of a salacious rape trial and now a double murder that included the foreperson of the jury. Well, welcome to his world. Maybe their youth would defend them from the slime that sometimes oozed out of the legal environment. Eagleson remembered how little such things had affected him as a young lawyer. He had remained detached from the people whose lives he was processing. But now it seemed he was constantly impacted by the flotsam and jetsam he used to merely observe. Perhaps this new generation was made of different stuff than the leftovers from the 1960’s.
“Frances, you and Jack will soon learn nothing worthwhile comes out of any meeting. It always comes down to one or two people carrying the load so why kid ourselves and waste everyone’s time. Unfortunately, the Judicial Commission can make all of our lives miserable with their arcane, inane rules that they never seem to understand do not apply well to rural jurisdictions such as ours. So, from time to time, I have a meeting to remind myself of the realities of running a court in Posey County with a Sword of Damocles dangling from Indianapolis. I will be upstairs.â€
Eagleson climbed the stairs to his chambers on the third floor, shut the door and stared at the stack of files on his massive antique desk. Being the circuit judge in a small rural county meant each day he had to address numerous diverse matters. Before he could synthesize last week’s rape case and yesterday’s murders, he would have to process this week’s ad hoc mixture of probate, domestic relations, juvenile and civil plenary matters as well as the constant interruptions from phone calls and staff questions. Though it seemed each case required special expertise, the judge had come to the cynical conclusion all it took to be a good judge was the ability to sign one’s name and the courage to accept the responsibility for doing so. As he often replied when asked about being judge, “Well, it’s better than having a real job.â€
Unfortunately, every now and then it became a real job, and this looked like it might be one of those times. How was he going to maintain perspective and objectivity on his upcoming cases with the specter of Damon Grange and the murdered Daltons encroaching upon his every thought? One way was to immerse himself in the fat file that contained the pleadings for the next criminal case that was set to begin in one week; the State of Indiana versus Malcolm Settles ought to get him back on track.