A Book of American Martyrs(187)

Naomi turned her camera onto the Broome County Courthouse, a building of little distinction. Through the camera lens the sandstone building looked a little more interesting—but only a little. Along with the criminal and civil judiciary for the county it also contained the Office of Public Records and a branch of the Ohio Motor Vehicle Agency and these accounted for most of the business in the courthouse that she could see.

Had her father ever stepped inside this building? (She had no reason to suppose that he had.) Yet it was here, at the second trial, that his murderer Luther Dunphy had been found guilty and sentenced to death.

She had to record the courthouse for that reason. She had to see for herself the interior to which her mother had been subjected pitilessly in the tedium and anxiety of the first Dunphy trial.

In the front foyer, after she’d gone through a desultory security check, Naomi asked permission of a county sheriff’s deputy to film the interior of the courtroom. (There was only a single, large courtroom in the building, which happened not to be in use at the time.) “Why?”—the deputy squinted at her suspiciously.

“For a school project. I’m in film school.”

“‘Film school’ where?”

Naomi considered. If she said New York City, that might be a less judicious answer than Ann Arbor, Michigan.

In fact, she had taken courses in what was called film studies at both the University of Michigan and at New York University.

She told the deputy Michigan. This appeared to be a good answer.

Still, he asked to see ID. She gave him her Michigan driver’s license which he examined closely.

“‘Voorhees.’”

(What did this mean? Why had the deputy spoken the name aloud? Did he recall the name, somehow?)

The deputy was about forty years old. It was quite possible that he’d been on duty at the time of the trials. Possibly, he’d even been on duty guarding the Women’s Center on the morning that Luther Dunphy had shown up with a shotgun and killed two people before anyone could stop him.

Naomi waited uneasily, smiling. Always in such circumstances you smile.

Good that she was white-skinned, an attractive girl with a friendly and forthright manner, obviously no threat to Broome County Courthouse security or to the Broome County sheriff’s deputy.

“OK, miss—‘Naomi.’”

With a smile the deputy handed the little laminated card back to her. The name Voorhees had meant nothing to him.

He’d smiled, but not with his eyes. He was a thickset man with narrow suspicious eyes, heavy jaw. His dull-blue uniform fitted him tightly; you could see the holstered firearm prominent at his hip. Yet Naomi was grateful to him for a few minutes inside the courtroom with her video camera.

Here is the courtroom where Luther Dunphy was tried. Twice.

First trial declared a “mistrial.”

Second trial resulting in guilty verdict. Sentenced to death for the murders of Gus Voorhees and Timothy Barron.

In March 2006, executed.

The camera eye is neutral, unjudging. Her own eye saw the futility of the effort: (empty) judge’s bench, (empty) jurors’ box, (empty) rows of seats. On the wall at the front of the room the heraldic coppery Seal of the State of Ohio. Near the judge’s bench, a U.S. flag.

Tall windows ablaze with sunshine, swirling motes of dust-molecules.

Nothing here. Nothing will come of nothing.

A remark of Gus Voorhees usually uttered with a smile.

A sweetly ironic smile. Not a mean or sardonic smile.

The trials were long over. Nothing of those days could be evoked now.

“Stay as long as you want to, miss. There’s no trials scheduled for today.”

The voice was intrusive, jarring. Noami had known that the deputy was watching her but she did not want to encourage a conversation.

“Thank you. I’m almost finished.”

“What kind of film course is it?”

“Our assignment is to make a visual record of municipal buildings, historic buildings, in Ohio.”

An answer so dull, even the deputy intrigued by a young woman who has wandered into his vicinity could not think of a reply.

For her visit to Muskegee Falls Naomi had dressed inconspicuously: loose-fitting khaki pants, shirt, sweater. On her head a baseball cap whose rim she could pull low over her forehead to shield her eyes from the sun while driving, and from the scrutiny of strangers. Her hair that was shoulder-length, wavy, a warm-mahogany brown, was pulled back pragmatically into a ponytail. There were no rings on her fingers except a single small milky opal in a white gold setting which her grandmother Madelena had given her as a “keepsake”—a ring that had belonged to Madelena.

She was a filmmaker—a documentarian. She had no wish to be seen, but to see. Everything in her appearance and in her manner was a signal to observers—Don’t take note of me please. I am nothing, nobody. I am invisible.

“Says you’re from Michigan, on your license? Why’d you come so far, here?”

Naomi saw that the deputy was watching her intently, with a kind of mild masculine belligerence that could be easily placated by a smile, an exchange of banter, a (female) air of coquettish deference. Any law enforcement officer of any age with a shiny badge, a gun on his hip, in uniform has been conditioned to expect such placating: it should not have cost Naomi Voorhees much to perform. Yet, she spoke matter-of-factly, just slightly coolly and not quite looking at the man.