And, “All we need is one hold-out, Luther! Out of twelve, one.”
With boyish excitement the court-appointed attorney consulted with his taciturn and somber-faced client whose lower face was covered now in a metallic-gray stubble and whose skin, creased and fine-wrinkled, had grown parchment-colored as if with the passage of decades. His eyes, though alert and seemingly watchful, were ringed with fatigue as if he rarely slept.
Both guards and other detainees in the detention facility admired Luther Dunphy for his Christian faith, kindness, composure. Most of all, not talking bullshit like everybody else.
Guards understood that they could trust Luther Dunphy. Doubt if he’d walk away from the facility if every door was unlocked.
Somebody tried to push him around, in the dining hall for instance, he didn’t fight back though you could see a look in his eye, like a match struck, what he’d do if he was in some other place without guards to inhibit him.
The size of Luther Dunphy. Even losing weight and his face getting thinner he was still a big man at two hundred pounds (or so) and in a prison facility it is size you respect, mostly.
Excess flesh melted from him. In his cell he did push-ups, sit-ups, rapidly touching his toes, flexing his arm and shoulder muscles as if he were lifting weights, running in place. Tirelessly he ran in place. His body broke out into a sweat but he barely panted, his heartbeat was slow and measured.
Some defendants talk. Some defendants talk nonstop. But some, like Luther Dunphy, do not talk much. These are the very best defendants.
God, that man was like a sphinx—with us at least. Like he didn’t really care about the trial because he believed himself to be in a place where it could not touch him. First time I’d ever met a zealot—a “religious fanatic”—up close. Luther Dunphy was absolutely convinced that he’d done nothing wrong—in fact, he had done something absolutely right: he’d taken orders as a “soldier of God.”
It was like he’d done what he had done. And he was not going to think about it further.
Right away he’d acknowledged that he killed the abortion doctor. He would not acknowledge that he’d killed the other man.
Yet, he was not insane. We dug up a psychologist from Toledo to argue yes, Luther Dunphy was “incapable mentally of participating in his own defense” but the judge didn’t buy it.
(Only crazy thing about Dunphy was, he’d refused to replace me with a private lawyer. He never accepted the Army of God defense fund money—he had some principle about that.)
At the first trial we lucked out—prosecution had an absolutely airtight case but not one but two wacky Christian females held out for not guilty. Everybody wanted to strangle the old bags including the judge but that was how it went down. Being that the trial was taking place in the same county, with the same juror pool of Protestant Christians, it wasn’t all that far-fetched a mistrial might happen again.
I said to Luther, Just pray to God the way you did the other time and Luther said, deadpan, Why would I pray? God has already made up His mind.
MORNING OF THE second trial seventeen miles away in Broome County Edna Mae could not rouse herself from bed when her daughter Dawn tried to wake her.
“Mawmaw! Wake up.”
But Edna Mae could not wake up.
Lethargy heavy as a leaded net lay upon all her limbs rendering her helpless.
Her eyelids too were heavy as lead.
The insolent daughter went so far as to push up one of Edna Mae’s eyes with her thumb shouting Wake up wake up WAKE UP MAWMAW but it was not to happen.
Luther’s older brother Norman was coming by the house, on the drive from Sandusky, to take his sister-in-law Edna Mae with him to Muskegee Falls; but when Norman arrived, in a car bearing three other Dunphy relatives, Edna Mae was still in bed, and not yet fully conscious.
Dawn ran out front to meet them. “Guess you’ll have to go without Mawmaw.”
She felt a stab of shame, seeing how her uncle Norman exchanged a glance with his younger brother Jonathan. As if it didn’t surprise any of the Dunphys that Luther’s wife was letting him down when he needed her.
“‘Mawmaw’ not feeling well again? That’s it?”
There was a sneering emphasis on both Mawmaw and again. Dawn understood that her uncle was furious with Edna Mae and by extension with Dawn—with all of Luther’s family.
Still she said: “Tell Daddy hello, Uncle Norman. Tell him we’re praying for him! Please.”
Usually, in the presence of her father’s brothers, Dawn was self-conscious and mute; her wish was not to be noticed by them. But something of Miss Schine’s manner had influenced her. Though Miss Schine had betrayed her and was no longer her friend often she found herself thinking—This is how Miss Schine would speak.