Shadow Lords, By the Light of Day

CHAPTER 1

“All arise!” cried the bailiff.

Those in the spectator section and at both of the counsel tables arose as the black-robed judge walked into the courtroom from the door to the left of the bench.

He sat down and the rest of the courtroom followed.

“The Superior Court for the State of California, County of Los Angeles, is now in session, the Honorable Roland K. Williams presiding!”

The judge reached down and picked up a file folder. It was thick.

“This is the State of California versus John Harold Powder.

“Are the parties ready?”

“Yes, your honor,” said the woman at the right-hand table. She was flanked by two men.

“Yes, your honor,” said the man at the left-hand table.

He was alone.

“Okay,” said the judge. “Let’s bring in the defendant.”

The bailiff went to a door on the other side of the courtroom and, opening it, motioned to someone through it. He then opened the door wide and two men in uniform came out with another man between them.

This man was dressed in a suit that didn’t seem to fit him all that well but that might have been because he was handcuffed, shackled and chained to a wide leather belt around his waist. That tended to bunch things up.

When they came through the door, the two officers took an elbow each and led the man to the left-hand table where they took off the handcuffs, shackles, chains and belt.

The man smoothed down the suit as best he could and then sat down.

The two officers that brought him in took up a post along the wall near the door they had come in.

“Mr. Powder,” said the judge in a way that sounded more like he was marking him off a list than as a greeting.

The man acknowledged it with a nod of his head.

“Alright,” said the judge. “Everyone is here that should be here. Let’s bring in the jury.”

“Before we do your honor,” said defense counsel rising from the left-hand table, “I would like to renew my objection for cause to some of the jurors in this case.”

“If you have anything more to tell me than what you already have, I’m all ears,” said the judge who looked as if he wasn’t really anything of the sort.

“Well, I reiterate my objection that at least three of these jurors frequent the Barbed and Lethal. That is a known hangout for—”

“Something that has nothing to do with this case,” said the woman rising from the other table. “We’ve already gone over this, your honor. This is a set of fantasies that counsel wants to foist upon this court.

“In all my time as a prosecutor, I have never heard an attempt at a defense like this. It’s more like a late night screening of some—”

“We have already gone over this, counselor,” said the judge interrupting the prosecutor but speaking to defense counsel. “You have wasted the court’s time with these flights of fancy. There is nothing to substantiate what you say—nothing at all—except for what sounds to me like the ravings of a lunatic.

“Now, you may want to persist in this but I will not allow it in my court anymore. Let me warn you that you are setting yourself up for an ineffective assistance of counsel claim and possibly malpractice if you persist with this.

“Do you understand?”

“Well, my client wants me to press it and, with what I’ve seen, I feel duty bound to bring it to the attention of this court—”

“Well, not anymore and not in my courtroom. This is enough, counselor. Don’t waste my time with any of this anymore or I will see you in your own very special hearing for contempt. Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” said counsel.

“Alright then. Let’s bring in the jury.”

The lawyer looked over at the prosecutor as she was sitting down.

“You look a little pale, Margaret,” he said.

The prosecutor turned her head away as if embarrassed by something. And she reached up and tugged at the scarf she wore around her neck.

The defense lawyer smiled and sat down.

“All rise,” said the bailiff again as the jury filed into the courtroom.

Twelve good men and woman and true, they were a cross-section of Los Angeles and it was more of a cross-section at this particular moment than juries had been at any other time. It was once the case that the more professionally employed jurors could get off of jury duty with some type of excuse or other relating to their professions. But now there was an insistence that they serve.

So there were more doctors and lawyers and other more white-collared workers on juries now along with the usual blue collars, retirees and people from the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder.

The jurors came into the courtroom with a quizzical look on their faces.

What type of a case was this going to be? Who was the defendant? Was this high profile or some kind of small, penny ante robbery?

Would it be interesting?

It was on their faces as they filed in. All, that is, except for three of them, two men, and one woman. They came in with a look of wariness on their faces, with eyes that watched, that took in everything. They were dressed in black though the woman’s black ensemble was glossy.

Possibly leather.

They sat down with the rest of the jurors.

“Ms. Reynolds,” said the judge.

The woman from the right-hand table, Ms. Reynolds, the lead prosecutor, stood up and went over to the podium set up right in front of the jury box.

She laid her legal pad down on it, folded her hands on top of it, looked at each member of the jury for a moment, and then began speaking.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said beginning slowly, “this case, the People of the state of California versus John Harold Powder is a case of murder. Murder in the first degree.

“The state will show that on or about September third of this year, the defendant, John Harold Powder, took a stave of wood to a shop in Westland where he had them sharpen it to a fine point. The proprietor of the shop wondered what he would do with such a thing. When he asked, the defendant said, ‘I’m going hunting.’

“That is what he said, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. He was going hunting.

“The next day, September 4th, he placed that stave in a canvas bag, a bag like some workmen use to carry their tools, and placing that bag in the trunk of his car, he drove to St. Michael’s parish.

“There he met one of the priests and asked him to bless him and his work.

“The priest did, sprinkling holy water over him and the stave and then he heard his confession.

“The defendant was not in a hurry when he did these things. He was taking it slow, deliberate, systematically, every part of it. It was as if he had a list and was going down it marking off one thing after another as he went along.

“By the time he was finished at the parish, it was near four o’clock, four o’clock in the afternoon. Rather late in the day to begin something but not too late for what Mr. Powder wanted to do.

“It was four o’clock when he drove to the house of one Vincent Beddoe. Four o’clock was the time when he started on the road that has led us all here.

“Unbeknownst to Mr. Beddoe, who was napping in his room at that very time of day, he had only a few minutes to live.

“When he pulled up to the residence, Mr. Powder did not get out immediately. He stayed in the car and looked to see if anyone was out, anyone who would see him.

“There were two people outside, a jogger and a woman out walking her dog. He let these two pass by even though it took them some few minutes to do that.

“But that didn’t matter to Mr. Powder. He was in no hurry. He was in no hurry because he knew that Mr. Beddoe took a nap in the afternoons and was then asleep in his room.

“When the two people passed, and he was sure they were gone, Mr. Powder got out of the car. He went around to the trunk, took out his canvas work bag, the one with the wooden stave in it, and took it with him.

“To do what he needed to do, he had to get into the house. He knew the front door would be locked and it would be exposed. So he went around to the back.

“In the back of the house was a door that opened up into the kitchen. It was locked but that was nothing to the defendant. He just smashed the glass, reached in and opened it.

“And then he was in.

“Inside the house! He could now do what he had come to do, what he had planned to do, what he had schemed for so long to do.

“Mr. Powder walked through the kitchen and into the front hallway to the stairs. He climbed them, one at a time, step by step, no hurry, no anxiety, everything going as planned just like clockwork.

“When he came to the top, he found there were four rooms.

“Which one was Mr. Beddoe in?

“He didn’t know. This was something he couldn’t know beforehand. He had never been to the house. So he decided to check them all.

“He twisted the knob and opened the door of the first.

“No Vincent Beddoe.

“Then he went to the second. When he opened the door to this room, he saw immediately that it was the right one.

“Mr. Vincent Beddoe was in that room asleep on his bed. The object of all this planning, the object of all this effort was there before him, exposed before him, helpless before him.

“Mr. Powder walked in and up to the bed. Then he took out the wood stave and set the bag down near his feet.

“At that moment, did he pause? At that moment, did he look down at the face of the man on the bed, the face of someone who had never done him any harm, the face of someone unconnected with him in any way, a man he was going to murder?

“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. But if he did it made no difference at all to what happened next. He did not stay his hand for anything that he saw in that room on that day. He was going to murder and he was going to do it in cold blood and nothing would stop him.

“Deliberately, without any hurry, the defendant gripped the stave in the middle of it, raised it high over his head and then brought it down with force. The stave pierced the chest of Mr. Beddoe stabbing him to the heart. It pierced down through and out his back embedding the point of it into his bed.

“And Mr. Beddoe died. There on that bed his life ebbed away until he was dead.

“Murdered.

“Mr. Powder was finished at that point. He had come and done what he wanted to do and it was now over and done with.

“He left the stave where he had planted it and then walked out of the house by the front door, leaving it open, and then he drove back home.

“And he went back to his life as if nothing had happened. It was for him as if he had swept a piece of lint off his jacket or taken a flyswatter to a bug. It was nothing to him the taking of this man’s life.

“Now, why did Mr. Powder do this? Why did he stab this man to death? What was his reason for doing it, his motive?

“Motive is actually not a part of the definition of murder but it is a question that jurors and human beings naturally ask. And it is rightful for us, as the government prosecuting this man for a heinous crime, to answer it.

“Why did he do it?

“For the oldest reason in the book. One simple word: Jealousy. He was jealous of the victim.

“You see, Mr. Beddoe had a girlfriend Mr. Powder was infatuated with. He approached her, expressed his interest in her, and was rebuffed by her. But not only by her but also by Mr. Beddoe himself. Mr. Powder had feelings for this woman but when he found out that he was nothing to her, that she wanted nothing from him, and when Beddoe expressed himself on that point, the defendant began to plot the death of Mr. Beddoe.

“He killed him because of jealousy.

“He murdered him because he was jealous of Mr. Beddoe.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is what we will prove. We will prove that John Harold Powder killed the victim in cold blood because he was rebuffed in his advances by the girlfriend of Mr. Beddoe. That is what we will show and when we have done it, I am confident that you will return a verdict of guilty, guilty of murder in the first degree.”

She walked back and sat down at the prosecution’s table.

“Thank you, Ms. Reynolds,” said the judge.

“Mr. Cooper?”

“Thank you, your honor,” said defense counsel getting up.

He strode up to the podium and placed his hands on top of it.

He had no notes and brought nothing with him. It was just him, the podium and the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I thank you for coming here and helping us with this little case. It is the jury—it is you— that puts democracy into the courtrooms of this country. That is a necessary thing. To be judged of your peers instead of by a judge who, unlike our illustrious and learned Judge Williams here, might be beholden to some other interests than to simple justice. Or might simply take too abstract a view of things to do justice in a particular case.

“To actually do justice in a case requires the common good sense of the people, people like you.

“Jurors also prevent the prosecution, the one who exercises the power of the state against the people of the state, to put someone away in secret. We need trials with citizens sitting as judges to prevent prosecutorial abuse and abuse of power by the state.

“So thank you for doing your civic duty. But more than that, thank you for helping to preserve what is a significant institution set up to prevent the unjustified use of power by the state.

“Now, to this case. The prosecutor says she will prove what she will prove. I welcome this. More than that, however, I demand it.

“You see, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client sits there at this table an innocent man right now. He’s as innocent as a babe and he is guaranteed this innocence by the state.

“This is what we call ‘the presumption of innocence.’

“Now what is it that will make John here guilty of a crime? It is only one thing: Evidence. It is evidence presented here in this courtroom, evidence that will be examined by not only you but also by the judge sitting there. It is this evidence and this evidence alone that will convict him, that will take the innocent that he is now as he sits there before you, away. It is evidence and evidence alone. Not supposition, not hearsay, not gossip, not the blaring headlines of the tabloids, not the rumors that might swirl around us about this or that case. It is stark, clear, convincing evidence. It is evidence that shows beyond a reasonable doubt that my client is not guilty of murdering this, this mon—”

Before he finished what he was going to say, he looked at the judge.

The judge was eyeing him.

He thought better of it.

“This man. This man.

“It is a tall order to fill but the prosecution must fill it, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. They must fill it beyond a reasonable doubt. It is a heavy burden on the state to do. They must show beyond a reasonable doubt that my client murdered this man.

“And we will hold the prosecutor to that proof. We must hold her to it for the sake not only of my client, but for the sake of the freedom we enjoy in this great land. Because if we do not they will next come for the rest of us.”

He stopped for a moment and looked at each one of the jurors. The three dressed in black didn’t look up at him. The others did in some form or another. They were curious looks.

“One more thing must be said,” he added after he was finished looking at them. “Things are not always as they seem. You remember that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Things are not always as they seem.”

He smiled at them and then went back to his table and sat down.

To purchase this book, go to: Shadow Lords, By the Light of day