Heaven on Earth


Copyright 2006 by Stan Jones

Detective Lieutenant George Winchell was shocked when prosecutor Marla Benson called out the name of her last witness at the death-penalty hearing for Matt Clary.

So shocked he left his bench at the back of the courtroom, lumbered forward, pushed through the gate to the prosecution table, and bent over to whisper in Marla's ear.  "You're gonna let that nut testify?"

"Now, George," Marla said.

Patronizing him, the way prosecutors always patronized detectives after the investigation was over.

"You know Larry loved her to pieces," Marla continued.  "The jury'll feel sorry for him, being her fiance' and everything.  It'll make them want to fry that little shit Matt Clary all the more."

"It’s Larry they'll be wanting to fry if he calls her Spanky and starts talking about her ass, the way he does," George said.

"Now, George," Marla said again.  "Let me handle this."

"And if he goes off on that Kirkingham guy - -“

“Kierkegaard.”

“Whatever.  If he goes off on that Kierkegaard guy, they'll want to commit him."

"George, sit down!"  Marla said.  Keeping it light, smiling and all, but meaning the hell out of it just the same.

George got off one more, just to show he wouldn’t be intimidated by a woman.  "And they'll commit him to a shower, if they get a whiff of him!"  Then he pushed back through the gate and sat down on his bench at the rear of the courtroom with a disgruntled thump.

"Lawrence Bickford," Judge Walter Thomas said.  "Is Lawrence Bickford in the courtroom?"

Marla Benning stood and faced the judge.  "He's just outside your honor.  If the bailiff?"

The bailiff standing at the end of George's bench pushed open the swinging doors and stuck his head into the hall.  George could hear him calling, "Lawrence Bickford?  Mr. Bickford?"

A pony-tailed figure in a tie-dyed tee shirt and jeans walked into the courtroom.  He wore little round glasses and carried a Starbucks cup.

"You can't bring that in here," the bailiff said.

Larry made a show of eyeing the bailiff's gut where it lopped over his belt.  "No sips, man," Bickford said as he handed over the Starbucks.  "It's not a skinny."

Just like the little shit, George thought, watching in disgust as Bickford walked to the witness stand, those ridiculous red Keds he always wore squeaking on the tile floor.

George Winchell had never been able to figure what a girl like Iris Long saw in Larry Bickford.  Nice girl, good family, rich father.  And smart!  Ph.D. at 21 in some kind of Internet thing, he never did understand exactly what Iris had been a doctor of.  George, at 58, could do e-mail and search the national crime system if he had to, but that was about it.  He had been born about 30 years too soon to really get the Internet thing, he figured.  Besides, it was shoe leather that solved murders, not computer code.

Anyway, Iris Long.  Smart and rich.  Not beautiful, but cute in a monkey-faced, flat-chested kind of way, judging from the pictures the family had shown him while he was working on the case.

And for her to hook up with this Bickford character.  A professional student, as far as George could see.  Thirty-one years old, still at the university, working on his Ph.D. thesis for god knows how long and no end in sight, according to his professors.  George had spent plenty of time with Bickford's professors in the early days of the case, when Bickford was the likeliest suspect, before George had started to figure it out was really Matt Clary who had killed Iris Long.

Kierkegaard, for Christ's sake.  That was the subject of Bickford's thesis: Kierkegaard.  Some old dead Danish philosopher who had written unreadable books back in the 1800s.  George knew they were unreadable from personal experience.  He had tried to wade through one, along with Bickford's thesis, when Bickford was still the likeliest.  No way.

Clary's lawyer, a young hotshot named Taggart Spencer from a white-shoe firm downtown, jumped up as Bickford came forward.  "Your honor, the defense objects.  In the first place, anything Mr. Bickford says is just going to inflame and prejudice the jury, if it doesn't totally befuddle them, like he did at trial.  And in the second place, we continue to maintain that it was in fact Mr. Bickford who --"

"That's enough, Mr. Spencer."  The judge didn't bang his gavel.  He didn't have one, as far as George Winchell knew.  In fact, George had never seen a real judge with a gavel.  That was only for television and the movies.

But Judge Taylor did slap his hand down on his bench for emphasis.  Judge Taylor was black, and about the same age as George.  Maybe he had arthritis or hemorrhoids, because he always looked uncomfortable and was impatient as hell, especially with smart-ass white-shoe lawyers who wasted his time.

"The court is well acquainted with your theory of the case, which the jury rejected unambiguously by finding your client guilty,"  Judge Taylor said in that menacing purr he reserved for the likes of Spencer Taggart.  "Unanimously.  All 12 of them.  Each and every one of them found your client guilty as sin.  So this is the part where you keep your theories to yourself.”  The judge put on his famously menacing smile.  “A’ight?"

Some of the jurors smiled with what looked like satisfaction at this.  One of them nodded vigorously.

"Clear, your honor."  Taggart Wilson sagged back into his chair and watched glumly as Bickford took his seat on the witness stand and raised his hand for the oath.

# # #

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?  Answer 'I swear,'" the court clerk intoned in a bored voice.

Larry thought this over.  It didn't seem right to make a fuss here at the sentencing proceeding for this monster Matt Clary who had killed Spanky.  But he couldn't make himself let it go by.

"I can handle it myself," he said finally.  At the clerk's look of mystification, he added: "What I mean is, the truth doesn't need help from any superstitious construct fashioned out of man's desperate search for meaning in the chaotic sea of pain around him."

He smiled and nodded encouragingly at the clerk, who looked to be about 40, with hair and lipstick that were both too red.  Her blank expression faded, a tincture of annoyance now surfacing.  She looked at the judge, who looked at Larry and opened his mouth to speak.

Marla Benning stood up and cleared her throat.  "Your honor, I believe Mr. Bickford would be more comfortable with an oath that didn't invoke the deity."

Judge Taylor glowered at the prosecutor, then at Larry, who smiled and nodded, thankful to have been rescued by Marla and wishing he could speak so concisely himself.  Taylor waved a hand at the clerk in resignation.  "The secular oath, Mrs. Ekstrom."

"Will you tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," Mrs. Ekstrom said.  "Answer 'I will.' "

Marla gave Larry a quick look with what he recognized as her don't-do-that frown.  "Sure," Larry said to clerk, "of course I will."

Mrs. Ekstrom, looking only a little mollified, had him give his name and address, then turned him over to Marla.

"Mr. Bickford, you were engaged to Iris Long, is that right?"

Larry nodded.  "For two years.  We were going to be married when I got my doctorate or Spanky cashed in her stock options, whichever came first.  And then Matt Clary killed her."

Marla gave him the don't-do-that frown again, her head turned slightly away from the jurors so they couldn't see her expression.  Larry realized he had let his little pet nickname for Iris slip, which Marla had told him not to do for obvious reasons, and he almost said "Oops!"  But at least he was able to stifle that before it got out.

"How did you find out about her death?"  Marla asked.

"I was in my carrel at the library.  Lieutenant Winchell back there came and got me and took me to the police station.  He thought I did it at first."

"Did he ask you to identify her body?"

"No!"  Larry shuddered.  "And I'm glad.  I mean Matt duct-taped a trashbag over her head and handcuffed her and threw her in the river for six days till they found her.  I wouldn't have wanted to see her."

Taggart Spencer was on his feet again.  "Object, your honor.  The details of Miss Long's death were amply covered at trial.  Rehashing it like this . . ."

"Cool it, Ms Benning," Judge Taylor growled.

"Yes, your honor," Marla said, with not the slightest trace of contrition that Larry could see from the witness stand.  She glanced at the jury, then turned to Larry again.

"Did you and Iris plan to have a family?"

"Oh, yes.  We --" Larry felt himself choking up and paused, not wanting to blubber in front of the jury or the television cameras in the media loft at the back of the courtroom.  "We were going to have three kids.  Two girls and a boy."

Marla smiled slightly and Larry felt embarassed by his display of certitude.  Of course it was unknowable, how many kids he and Spanky would have.  But he had known.

It was a dream that had told him about the three kids.  In the dream, he and Spanky were married and in the house they’d have someday, them and their three little kids.  He, Larry, would be telling another Curious George story and the kids would be laughing helplessly at it, rolling around on the carpet like colorful little beach balls and shrieking, “Tell the one about George and the ether bottle, Daddy.”

But of course it wouldn’t do to tell the jury about the Curious George dream.  They’d think he was crazier than they already did.  Plus, he had never told anyone but Spanky about the dream, and it was his opinion the dream had died with her, so he did not plan to tell anyone else about it, either.

Certainly, he had not had it since her death, but that dream was how he had known how many kids they were going to have.  And supposed he still knew, in a way:  zero kids, now.

Marla looked serious again.  "What happened when you found out about Iris' death?"

"I lost my appetite for a while."

Marla smiled again, but this time at the jury, and it was a motherly smile.

"For a while?"

"For quite a while, I guess."

"Larry, isn't it true that you had to be hospitalized for malnutrition after she died?"

Larry nodded, again not trusting himself to speak.

"I'm sorry, you'll have to talk aloud for the tape," Marla said.

"I, ah . . ." He cleared his throat.  "Yes, I wasn't eating enough and I was in the hospital for a while.  With tubes in me."

"I won't ask if you loved her."

Larry nodded and wiped the corners of his eyes with his knuckles.  "Thank you," he said.

Marla spent some time looking through her notes.  Larry knew she didn't need to look through any notes.  She was smart about things like that; she would have them memorized, without having tried to do it.  He supposed she was faking it to let the jury think over his testimony.

"Larry, as you know, this is a sentencing proceeding," Marla said at last.  "The jurors will decide what to do with Matt Clary, now that they have convicted him of murdering Iris Long.  Mr. Spencer over there wants the jury to give his client life in prison.  The People, represented by me, have asked for the death penalty.  What do you think?"

"Fry him."

"What?"

"Fry him.  Look what he did to Sp - - to Iris."

"Well, as a literal fact, we don't have the electric chair in this state anymore, Larry.  It's lethal injection now.  But I think we all get your meaning.  But aren't you a philosophy major?"

Larry shrugged.  "Sure.  And a barista at Starbucks."

"Never mind about the Starbucks," Marla said.   "What about the philosophy?  You're comfortable with the death sentence?"

" 'My soul always returns to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare,' " Larry said. " 'There one feels that human beings are speaking; there they hate, there they love, murder the enemy, damn his offspring through all ages, there they sin.' "

"I'm sorry," Marla said. "What was that?"

Larry recited the famous lines again.

"Were you quoting someone?"

Larry nodded.  "The Great Dane."

Taggart Spencer spoke up again.  "Your honor, this is a travesty.  This man's quoting a dog.  He's obviously insane."

Judge Taylor drew his brows together and glared at Marla.  "Ms Benning?"

"Larry, is the Great Dane a dog?"

"Of course not."  Larry shook his head and his ponytail switched back and forth like it was attached to a real horse.  "He's Soren Kierkegaard."

"The Danish philosopher?  The subject of your doctoral thesis?"

Larry nodded, then remembered the tape recorder and spoke.  "Yes.  That Soren Kierkegaard."  He smiled a little, despite the gravity of the proceedings.  Not at the joke, which was stupid, but because no one in the courtroom, except maybe Marla, would realize that it was a joke, probably.  Certainly not that it was stupid.

"And Kierkegaard said that?"

"Yes, he did," Larry said.  "He said, 'Murder the enemy.' "

Marla sat down, behind her notes.  "That's it for us, your honor."

Judge Taylor looked at the defense table.  "Mr. Spencer?  Cross-examine?"

Taggart Spencer had one hand over his eyes.  He sighed and said, "No, Your Honor, nothing."  Clary, blond and tan as ever, wearing his dot-com millionaire uniform of some glossy expensive suit over a black collarless shirt, glared and said nothing, his blue eyes ablaze.

# # #

Larry was out in the hall, working on another mocha and trying to synopsize "Either-Or," the Great Dane's most famous book, for Marla Benning, when the jury came back.  It had only been two hours since they were sent off to settle Matt Clary's fate.  The crowd in the hall was very impressed, but in different ways.

Marla Benning hooked a thumbs-up and mouthed a silent "Yes!" at Larry and Lieutenant Winchell.

Matt Clary looked at Taggart Spencer, whose face had fallen like a window blind with a broken cord.  When Clary saw that, his face fell, too.  Then he glared in the direction of Larry, Marla and Lieutenant Winchell.

They returned to the courtroom, took their seats and watched as the jurors filed back into the box.  Judge Taylor asked if they had reached a verdict.  The jury forewoman, an pewter-haired librarian with glasses dangling from a cord around her neck said, yes, they had, and passed the paper to the bailiff, who carried it to the judge.

"Stand up, Mr. Clary," the judge said.

Clary stood and Judge Taylor unfolded the paper.  He read it, then looked up at Clary.

"The penalty is death," Taylor said.  "Mr. Clary, you're sentenced to die by lethal injection 90 days from today.  Do you understand the sentence?"

Clary crumped into his chair and said nothing.  "We understand it, Your Honor," said the defense attorney, Taggart Spencer.  "We'll be filing an appeal, of course."

"Of course," said Judge Taylor.  "Bailiff, take Mr. Clary into custody.  Court's adjourned."

Larry came up to the railing to see Clary led off, and to leave the courtroom with Marla Benning.  He tensed up as Clary walked as close to the defense table as he could get, then leaned towards Marla.  Larry looked back and was reassured to see that Lieutenant Winchell was nearby to help the bailiff if Clary attacked Marla.  What if he had a weapon?  Could Winchell, or he, Larry, get between them quick enough?

But Clary just bared his teeth and hissed at Marla before the bailiff dragged him out:  "You'll never get me, you cunt."