Trial by Fury Read online

  TRIAL BY FURY

  A John J. Malone Mystery

  Craig Rice

  Chapter One

  The long, dark corridor of the Jackson County Courthouse was as still as a grave, and almost as airless. Along the edges of the high ceiling, the shadows gathered into darkness, smoky and impenetrable; in the vast space below there was only a strange, murky half-light, more blue than gray, a light that seemed to be of its own making. Outside the great double doors it was blazing noon, but in this corridor it was dusk.

  Even on that day, the hottest of the summer, there was a faint and uncomfortable chill in the motionless air.

  Harvey Button, the janitor, paused in the act of picking up an infinitesimal scrap of wastepaper from the tile floor, and stood listening, almost as though he hoped to hear some reassuring sound.

  Later, of course, he claimed to have had a premonition. It had, he said, wakened with him early in the morning. Not exactly a premonition, either, but a kind of vaguely unpleasant feeling. Yes, it could have been the weather, or even the last night’s beer, but, he pointed out triumphantly, it was something much more fateful.

  One of the massive doors suddenly swung open, and the blast of sunlight made him blink. A rush of hot air came in with it as though from a furnace. Above the trees outside he could see a great dark streak in the sky, beginning to blot out the blazing glare. Every leaf on every tree was perfectly motionless.

  “Going to storm,” Harvey Button said amiably to the couple who had just come in. He slammed the door shut.

  “Cool in here, anyway,” the man said, mopping his brow.

  The little janitor looked at them curiously. The man was tall, red-haired, and very thin; his perspiring face was a mass of tiny freckles. The girl with him was, Harvey said later, a whooperdoo.

  Even On this day of almost incredible heat, she appeared cool. Every strand of shining ash-blonde hair was exquisitely in place, her pale, delicate, patrician face was made up to perfection. Harvey Button knew nothing of dress designers and Michigan Avenue shops, but he enjoyed looking at the lines of her perfectly plain gray linen suit.

  “Where the hell is the county clerk?” the girl asked pleasantly.

  “You mean, where’s the county clerk,” her companion said severely. “You’re in a respectable community now.”

  Harvey Button grinned. “Who the hell wants to know where the county clerk is?”

  “You get the idea right away,” the girl said, grinning back at him.

  “He’s upstairs in the courtroom,” the little janitor told her. “Today’s the county board meeting.” He might have been speaking of a convocation of the angels, from the tone of his voice. “But his deputy can take care of you, if you’re looking for a marriage license.”

  “We’ve already got one of those,” the red-haired man said. “This time we want a fìshing license.”

  “Though,” the girl added, “if you have a special on today, we might consider something snappy in a this year’s model.”

  Buttonholes thought the whole thing over for a minute. “You’d better see the county clerk’s deputy,” he said at last. “First door to your left, down the corridor.”

  The couple thanked him and went away. He was sweeping up a microscopic bit of ash that had fallen from the blonde girl’s cigarette when a tremendous clatter of footsteps began to sound on the stairs. The janitor stood aside and watched as forty-two members of the county board poured out through the corridor, then he began to clean up the small litter they had made on the floor.

  It was a wonderful courthouse, if only people would keep it neat. He looked around admiringly. Back in 1882, they knew how to build courthouses. Big, paneled doors, high ceilings, fancy tile floors, and elegant millwork every-where.

  He walked to the end of the corridor, opened the door, and glanced out. In these few minutes, the sky had become entirely dark, immense black clouds pressed down over the trees like a gigantic cover. Not a single breath of air stirred anywhere, every bird in the courthouse square was silent.

  “She’s going to be a whopper when she hits,” the janitor remarked to the World in general.

  He shut the door and switched on the electric light in the cavernous hallway. It didn’t help much.

  A tallish, well-dressed woman with short gray hair came hurrying into the courthouse, slamming the door behind her. The janitor nodded to her.

  “Is Mr. Skindingsrude still here, Buttonholes?”

  “Yep, Miss McGowan. He’s up in the courthouse.”

  A moment later the door opened again. The little janitor hurried to close it after a portly, red-faced, white-haired man.

  “’Afternoon, Senator.”

  Ex-Senator Peveley nodded gruffly and began puffing up the steep flight of stairs to the second floor. Harvey Button, otherwise known as Buttonholes, sighed wearily, finished sweeping up the last bits of wastepaper and ashes, and deposited them in a metal box on which he had painstakingly lettered HELP KEEP OUR COURTHOUSE CLEAN.

  By the time he had finished, the young couple had returned from the county clerk’s office. Buttonholes grinned widely and opened the door for them. The blonde girl looked at the threatening sky and frowned.

  “I’m not sure I want to go out in that.”

  “Are you driving?” Buttonholes asked.

  She nodded and pointed to a rakish robin’s-egg-blue convertible parked near the courthouse.

  “Then you’d better wait till she blows over,” the janitor said. “These summer storms never last long.”

  The red-haired man shrugged his shoulders. “O.K., wheel out a waiting room.”

  “We haven’t got one of those,” Buttonholes said regretfully. He scratched his head thoughtfully. “I’ll be glad to show you around the courthouse while you’re waiting, though.” He might, from his manner, have been offering to show them the Taj Mahal.

  “Come on, Jake,” the girl said. “It’s a noble offer. You’ve never seen a courthouse like this one.”

  Jake hesitated. “I’ve seen so much of a courthouse exactly like this one, I bet I could find the men’s toilet, blindfolded. Back in Grove County—”

  A light came into Buttonholes’ eyes. “Grove County, Iowa? I’ve got kinfolk there. Visited there back in ’32. But say, the courthouse in Grove Falls can’t touch this one.”

  “You tell him,” the girl said warmly. “Jake’s just a helpless provincial. A courthouse would have to go some to beat

  “You’ve got to show me,” Jake said. He looked at his wrist watch. “Hell, we’ve got nothing in the world but time. Come on, Helene, let’s see the sights.”

  “I’m Harvey Button,” the janitor said.

  “I’m Jake Justus,” the red-haired man told him. “This is my wife, Mrs. Justus.”

  “Pleased to meet you both,” Buttonholes said, rattling an enormous bunch of keys. “Well, you’ve seen the county clerk’s office. The highway office is just like it, so’s the clerk of the court’s. All pretty elegant, too. This here’s the county treasurer’s office.”

  He opened a door with a proud gesture.

  As far as they could see, it was exactly like the office they had just left, save that this one had windows on two sides. It was a large, high-ceilinged room in which a shining, new mahogany desk stood next to an immense, scarred, roll-top model. Despite its size, the room was crowded from Wall to Wall with tables, chairs, desks, stools, filing cabinets, and office machines.

  Sitting at the old roll-top desk was the most completely hairless man Jake and Helene had ever seen. He was thin, and even sitting in a swivel chair he appeared tall, but his only other mark of distinction was his nude, polished head. Helene commented later that even his eyelids were bald.

  At one end of the office a huge iron door
leading to the vault stood ajar. Next to it, in the corner, was an ancient black marble fìreplace in which a small steam radiator had been installed.

  “’Course, we don’t use the fireplaces any more,” Button-holes said proudly. “They’re just for show.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Helene said.

  Above the fireplace was a framed yellow group photograph marked COURTHOUSE STAFF, 1902. Beyond it a black-framed, hand-lettered sign proclaimed AN HONEST MAN IS THE NOBLEST WORK OF GOD.

  “In the treasurer’s office of the Grove Falls Courthouse,” Jake said, “the sign read ‘Honesty is the best policy.’”

  The bald-headed man looked up from his ledger. “This one,” he said rather coldly, “is the slogan of the Jackson businessmen’s association.” He added, as though to be agreeable to a visitor, “However, honesty is the best policy.”

  “I’ve heard it spoken of very highly,” Jake said politely.

  “That was Mr. Goudge,” Buttonholes said, out in the hall. “Alvin Goudge.”

  He opened the next door down the hall. It disclosed an office similar to the one occupied by Mr. Goudge, save that two plumpish girls were working furiously at a pair of adding machines, and that a row of ten-cent-store toy trucks decorated the top of the carved marble mantelpiece. A wide mustached man with a felt hat pulled down over his eyes was sleeping noisily in the swivel chair in the corner.

  “This is the highway department,” Jake declared.

  Buttonholes stared at him admiringly. “How did you know?”

  Jake said cryptically, “This is old home week.” He whistled a bar of Highways Are Happy Ways. “Back in Grove County they picked the highway commissioner in a numbers game. Let’s shove on.”

  Buttonholes grinned knowingly, nudged Jake in the ribs, and said, “Chet Feeny, our highway commissioner, owns a half-dozen farms up near Mills Center.” He stopped suddenly, looked stern, and added in a virtuous whisper, “He drinks.”

  “Maybe he has a secret sorrow,” Helene said sadly.

  The little janitor led them on down the cavernous hall, opening a succession of doors marked COUNTY NURSE, OUTDOOR RELIEF, and SANITATION. He passed by an ornate pair of double doors on which a gold-lettered sign proclaimed COUNTY COURT.

  “It’s locked up,” he explained. “Judge Foote is away on a fishing trip.”

  He opened a door disclosing a long, narrow, and extremely steep staircase, and led the way up. Near the top of it was a Sharp and perilous curve.

  “These are only the back stairs,” he explained.

  “Two sets of stairs,” the blonde girl said. “Sheer swank.”

  At the top of the stairs were two large, dreary rooms and a tiny hall. One was the jury room and the other was for consultations, Buttonholes explained. The door off the hall led into a broom closet. They went on into the courtroom.

  It was an immense, high-ceilinged room, the plaster walls painted in a fair approximation of marble. A dingy mural above the judge’s bench appeared to have something to do with justice. It was partly covered with a flag.

  “Beautiful room,” Buttonholes said proudly.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Helene said.

  Jake looked curiously at the group of people inside the enclosure. There were the two that Buttonholes had seen, Miss McGowan, and ex-Senator Peveley, the latter very red-faced, very perspiring, and apparently very cross. There was a sturdy, middle-aged man with sandy hair; Buttonholes pointed him out as Ed Skindingsrude, chairman of the county board. The tall, handsome man with curly white hair was Phil Smith, the county clerk.

  “You’d find it more interesting if a trial was going on,” the janitor said apologetically. “Court ain’t in session till October.”

  “I’m sure if you’d known we were coming you’d have made different arrangements,” Jake said. “Maybe even a nice juicy murder case.”

  Buttonholes grinned. “Ain’t been a murder in Jackson County in thirty-two years. Fella up in Jay Creek shot his father-in-law over a horse deal, thirty-two years ago. Awful tough bunch of people up in Jay Creek.”

  “Quick-tempered,” Helene said gravely. “Maybe there was more to it than ever got into the papers. Maybe he had a secret sorrow too.”

  Buttonholes shook his head. “He claimed the old guy stole his horse,” he said solemnly.

  They trailed slowly across the courtroom. On the other side, a wide, impressive stairway with a thick, near-mahogany rail led down to the floor below.

  “This here’s the main stairway,” the janitor said. “The little one was put up there just in case of emergencies, but it’s so handy it gets used all the time.”

  “Don’t be discouraged,” Helene said. “Maybe you’ll have an emergency here sometime, and then everybody’ll use the main stairway.”

  Jake had paused on the landing, one hand still clinging to the rail. Through the arched window above the landing he could see that the ominous darkness outside had deepened, the breathless stillness of the air could be seen as much as felt. A faint, ugly, greenish light showed at the very edge of the sky.

  “She’s going to be a ring-tailed dandy,” Buttonhole breathed admiringly, looking up at the window.

  “It gives me the horrors,” Jake said sharply, reaching for a cigarette. “I usually don’t mind storms, but something about this gives me just plain, old-fashioned horrors.”

  Helene looked at him, opened her mouth to speak, and closed it again.

  Buttonholes regarded him thoughtfully. “Are you like that too?”

  “Like what?” Jake asked suspiciously. There was a little edge to his voice.

  “Second sight. I tend a little that way myself.”

  “It must be wonderfully useful,” Helene said. “How are you on horse races?”

  Buttonholes ignored her. “My grandmother was a Welsh-woman. She had the gift.” He drew a long breath. “Never forget when she met Art Tonny. He was going with my stepsister’s oldest girl. She looked right at him and she said, ‘Young man, there’s the mark of death on you.’ ” He paused and spat neatly into a sand bucket. “Those are the very words she used.”

  “I can think of better ones,” Jake said admiringly.

  “Five years later,” Buttonholes said, “he got drunk and drove his car into the river.” He added, “Good thing my stepsister’s oldest girl hadn’t married him.”

  “Maybe she had the same gift,” Helene commented.

  They had reached the vast lower hall that stretched from the front of the Jackson County Courthouse to its rear. A sudden breeze arose from nowhere, cutting across the humid warmth like a cold knife, and, as suddenly, died down again.

  “Storm or no storm,” Jake Justus began firmly, taking Helene by the arm, “we’re getting out of here, and—”

  That was when they heard the scream.

  It came from somewhere over their heads, a strange, half-choked cry. It was followed by another sound, that of a heavy body rolling and bumping down that narrow twisting, back staircase.

  The red-haired man reached the bottom of the stairs just as the body of ex-Senator Peveley rolled out onto the corridor floor. Jake bent down for a quick look.

  “Well,” he said grimly, “there’s your second murder in thirty-two years.”

  Chapter Two

  “But he can’t be murdered,” one of the plump girls from the highway commissioner’s office kept repeating over and over. “He’s Senator Peveley.”

  Jake looked at her. “I’m sorry, but that’s one kind of Senatorial immunity I never heard of.”

  He felt aggrieved, not altogether without cause. “This is the sort of thing we came to the country to get away from,” he said to Helene.

  She nodded sympathetically. “It’s none of our business,” she said. “Let’s get out of here and go on with our fishing trip, murder or no murder.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Jake said. “Even in the country it isn’t considered good form to walk away from a corpse before the police arrive.”


  Everybody was now looking at the late Senator Peveley but, Jake reminded himself, soon those glances would be directed at them, with a mixture of curiosity and hostility. Helene wouldn’t know that. She hadn’t spent the first years of her life in Grove Falls.

  It was amazing how the courthouse corridor had suddenly filled with people. Only a moment before it had been empty, dark, and cavernous. Now it was crowded with shocked and curious people. He looked up and recognized the gray-haired Miss McGowan, the stocky little Mr. Skindingsrude, the tall, handsome Phil Smith. There were others, strangers to him.

  Alvin Goudge, his bald head shining, pushed his way into the center of the group. “Senator Peveley shot! This is terrible! Somebody’s got to do something.”

  “Senator Peveley can’t be dead,” a thin, spectacled man said wildly. “Why, I was talking to him five minutes ago.”

  “What makes you think that’s a guarantee?” Jake said irritably. “You figure he’s just doing imitations?”

  He looked around the group intently. He had been there since the first sound of the scream, and he knew that nobody had gone out through those double doors. Someone, there in that corridor, had murdered Senator Peveley.

  A young, brown-suited man Jake had noticed upstairs in the courtroom had pushed his way through the crowd and was standing staring at the body. He was a handsome young man, in a thin, worried way, brown-haired and brown-eyed. There was a lead pencil smudge on one side of his face.

  “Jerry Luckstone, the new district attorney,” Buttonholes whispered to Jake.

  The district attorney’s face had turned a sickly white.

  “But it’s Senator Peveley,” he said in a dazed voice.

  “Right the first time,” Jake said. “Now try for the sixty-four-dollar question.”

  Jerry Luckstone hadn’t heard. He was goggling foolishly at the back of the dead man’s white linen suit.

  “He can’t have been murdered,” he declared at last. “I’m engaged to marry his daughter.”

  Jake sighed. “You’ll just have to get someone else to give the bride away.” He drew a long breath. “Well, what are you going to do about it? A man’s been murdered. You can’t just stand here looking at him forever.”