A Book of American Martyrs(79)

There were many more religious persons in the United States than there were secular persons; of these, the great majority were Christians. A serious Christian would have to accept that, if God so willed, God might speak directly to him; it would be illogical to be a believing Christian and deny that God, or Christ, could have such a power. In this way, Luther Dunphy was not insane in his beliefs; in his actions, he had violated the law, but not as an insane person.

The defense’s argument was a shrewd one: Luther Dunphy had not committed any crime in “defending” the “defenseless”—that is, unborn babies scheduled to be aborted that very morning in the Broome County Women’s Center; under the law, one is allowed to commit an act of homicide in order to defend oneself or others. By presenting this act as idealistic, altruistic, and motivated by Christian charity, and in no way self-aggrandizing, the defense attorney was claiming that the defendant had acted selflessly. He had also suggested that his client, though seemingly “of sound mind and body” at the present time, had been “in a state of extreme mental duress” at the time of the shootings.

Which would provoke any juror to think, reasonably: had Luther Dunphy been insane? Was he insane, even now?

Jenna didn’t want to think that Gus would have diagnosed Luther Dunphy as mentally unfit to stand trial. He’d often remarked that many of the most desperate girls and women who came to abortion clinics, the poorest ones, seemed to him mentally unstable if not actually ill. And a good many were suicidal, threatening to kill themselves if they could not terminate their pregnancies.

Jenna had begun to notice, with much interest, the family and relatives of the defendant, seated in two rows directly behind the defense table. These had been pointed out to her by the prosecutor’s staff. Most fascinating to her was the murderer’s wife—the other wife. Her name, Jenna knew from the newspapers, was Edna Mae; she’d been a nurse’s aide before marrying at a young age. And there, beside Edna Mae, the murderer’s children—at least, two children in their early teens who appeared to be brothers or (the younger had a plain pale face defiantly sexless) a brother and a sister, who resembled their father in the shape of their faces and about the eyes.

The other wife resembled a frayed cloth doll. Her unkempt fair brown hair she’d covered carelessly with a scarf that kept unknotting, slipping off her head. She wore a fleece-lined jacket, trousers, square-toed rubber boots. Her thin face was paste-colored and her eyebrows were penciled in arcs of mild surprise. Mrs. Dunphy too appeared older than her probable age as if her life had been sucked from her, from within. While court was in session her small mouth was often open, her lips moving in what Jenna supposed was silent prayer.

Silent prayer to what, whom?—Jenna wondered.

Did Edna Mae Dunphy truly think that her psychopath husband might be not guilty?

This other wife had not once glanced in Jenna’s direction though others around her (family, relatives?) often glanced at Jenna coldly, disdainfully and disapprovingly. The sallow-skinned boy, who might have been a year or two older than Darren. The plain-faced girl (Jenna saw now, this was almost certainly a girl) who might have been Naomi’s age. She wondered how the son and daughter of Luther Dunphy must feel—their father on trial for murder.

Did they love him, regardless? Did they approve of his act of violence, were they indeed his children?

Jenna thought it curious, and worthy of note, that Mrs. Dunphy was allowing her children to attend the trial at which their father was (almost certainly) going to be found guilty of murder. Or hadn’t Mrs. Dunphy the power to bar the teenagers from the courtroom? Jenna saw how in the courtroom there appeared to be virtually no communication between the mother and the teenaged children. From time to time the girl shifted about restlessly in her seat; she did not like to hear testimony condemning her father, and she was often annoyed or embarrassed or anxious about her mother—for Edna Mae Dunphy sometimes appeared dazed or sedated as if not entirely aware of her surroundings; while the boy, more mature than his sulky sister, thus more responsible, took care to help his mother get to her feet, and to guide her, with a subtle grip of her elbow, into and out of the crowded courtroom. Jenna saw them elsewhere in the courthouse, and always the boy was overseeing the mother while the stonily impassive daughter ignored them both. How protective of his mother, this boy of fourteen! Jenna was moved, even as Jenna did not like to see; she did not want to feel any sympathy for the Dunphys, that would complicate her feeling for the father. She’d been able to banish her own young-adolescent children from the trial because they were living far from Muskegee Falls, Ohio, and she would allow them nowhere near.

Mom, please! I want to attend the trial with you.

Darren, no. That is not going to happen.

Behind the defendant’s family were Dunphy relatives who attended the trial less regularly than Edna Mae and the children. These were solitary men who frowned menacingly during the testimony of prosecution witnesses; sometimes, they left the courtroom abruptly. There was a man of thickset middle age resembling Luther Dunphy, an older brother perhaps, with a hatchet-sharp face, who stared in mute incredulous fury at officers of the court (judge, lawyers, guards, bailiffs) as if he believed they might wish to impinge upon his freedom of movement; he seemed, at times, particularly disgusted with his brother’s court-appointed lawyer who (it may have seemed to him) was not speaking vehemently enough on Luther’s behalf. But between Luther Dunphy and this individual there never passed a glance; it seemed to Jenna quite possible that Luther didn’t know the man was there. Beside him there sometimes sat an older couple who appeared ravaged as if with illness—the defendant’s parents. They were an elderly couple who appeared to be in their early eighties. The man was heavyset, with flesh-colored hearing aids prominent in both ears. The woman was frail, anxious. Jenna felt pity for them, and impatience. It was not their fault that their son had become a murderer—(was it?)—but they had to be pleading with their God to save him.