Anti-abortion organizations—or, as they called themselves, Right-to-Life organizations—had rallied to provide a defense fund to replace Dunphy’s court-appointed attorney with a high-profile attorney but—unexpectedly—Dunphy had refused to accept a new attorney, and had refused to cooperate with the defense fund. He had not denied having shot the “abortion doctor” but he would not enter a plea of either guilty or not guilty; his attorney had entered the plea in his place, not guilty. The defendant’s position seemed to be that he would submit to a trial but he would not actively defend himself for he did not accept that he had committed any crime, “in the eyes of God”—killing Voorhees was not a “crime.”
Indeed, having killed Voorhees was a matter of pride for him while having killed Barron was a matter of shame.
(Timothy Barron had been a native of Muskegee Falls. From what Jenna knew of him he’d been an exceptional person. Gus had spoken of him warmly; of course, Jenna had never met him. She had supposed that, in Muskegee Falls, where she was staying at a hotel, she might have been invited to visit with the Barrons during the trial, and might have befriended them; but they had not expressed much interest in meeting Gus Voorhees’s widow. She’d been introduced to them in the prosecutor’s office—wife, adult daughters, adult son, a brother of the deceased man—but to her surprise they’d been stiffly polite and not at all friendly. Jenna was made to realize that of course, they blamed Gus for Timothy Barron’s death: if not for Gus, Timothy Barron would still be alive.)
Each evening after the trial Jenna called the children. This was a high point of her day—though it was not an easy hour or so, and left her shaken.
Always she spoke with Melissa first. For it was her youngest child who most needed her, and missed her.
Melissa never asked about the trial for Melissa was acutely sensitive to her mother’s wishes, even over a telephone; but Darren and Naomi wanted to know how the trial was going, and all Jenna could tell them was, “It seems to be going well. Each day is exhausting.” Darren had said several times that he wanted to attend the trial and Jenna had told him without hesitation No.
“I should be there, if something goes wrong. If they find that bastard not guilty.”
Jenna flinched at her son’s casual profanity—bastard. It had not been like Gus to speak with casual profanity, only if he’d been seriously annoyed or angry. But Darren seemed more frequently angry. Or rather, Darren seemed infrequently not-angry.
“Please don’t think that way, Darren. I’ve been assured the trial will turn out—as it should. There’s nothing we can do about it in any case except wait, and hope.”
“Right. It’s the other side that prays.”
Darren handed over the receiver to Naomi who spoke to her mother in a lowered voice, almost inaudibly. Almost it seemed to Jenna that her once-articulate daughter had acquired a speech impediment.
After a few frustrating minutes on the line with Naomi, Jenna felt an impulse to scream at her.
Don’t! Damn you! Don’t do this. We are all trying not to be crazy, don’t you dare give in.
“Naomi? What did you say? I’m having trouble hearing you, this line is poor.”
“Yeh. OK.”
“‘OK’—what?”
“‘This line is poor.’” Naomi paused, and then said, with startling clarity, words Jenna had never heard from her before, “This line is shitty.”
“Well. You could try to speak louder, then. Couldn’t you?”
She was trying not to react with surprise at her daughter’s vulgar expression—shitty.
This was new, in Naomi. Jenna would have to adjust.
The children were sixteen, thirteen. Not really children any longer. Childhood had ended.
She spoke with Naomi for a few more minutes with strained patience. Naomi’s replies were muffled and might have been laughter, or coughing.
Jenna listened fiercely. Possibly, Darren was there also, beside his sister, and the two were laughing at her.
Because she was their mother, and she loved them? Because they had lost the essential bond between them, that had been possible only with their father? Because they now could not escape one another?
NEAR THE END of the prosecution’s presentation, in what would be the final week of the trial, Jenna realized to her horror—It is Gus who is on trial. Not Luther Dunphy.
She’d been slow to realize this stunning fact. She’d been reluctant.
In exacting detail the succession of prosecution witnesses had described the murders, again, again, and again—but the motive for the murders, which was very carefully questioned by the prosecutor, was always questioned by the defense attorney with the consequence that the jury was hearing, repeatedly, that Luther Dunphy had acted as he had in order to “defend the defenseless.”
These were witnesses who’d seen Luther Dunphy approach Dr. Voorhees and the volunteer Barron, remove a double-barreled shotgun from inside his jacket, and begin firing with no warning. Again and again this scene was envisioned so that Jenna had become numbed by its repetition yet holding her breath, unable to breathe until the witness stepped down.
Witnesses who’d seen Luther Dunphy at the prayer vigil many times of whom some knew his name, and some did not; but all could identify him in the courtroom.
Most of these were right-to-life protesters. They were yet obliged to testify against Luther Dunphy for they had sworn to tell the truth and would be guilty of contempt of court otherwise.
And do you see the man with the shotgun here in the courtroom today? Can you point him out, please?
Yes. That’s him.