A Book of American Martyrs(84)

Stockard was very uneasy now. At the defense table Luther Dunphy had ceased looking at him, and was staring at his clenched hands.

“You have been observed talking together, Mr. Stockard. Several witnesses have told us. But you can’t recall what you talked about?”

“I . . .I recall that Luther Dunphy happened to mention that he’d noticed that the abortion doctor and his escort sometimes arrived before the police guard, at about seven-thirty A.M., and that this was—surprising. He asked me if it was routine, that Voorhees arrived as much as twenty minutes before the police.”

“And what did you tell him, Mr. Stockard?”

“I told him—I think I told him—that I had not noticed . . .”

“Was it common for you to arrive so early, when the Center doesn’t open until eight A.M.?”

“It opens for the public at eight A.M. It opens for women seeking to abort their innocent babies. But the medical staff arrives earlier of course. And so, some of us arrive earlier.”

“Including Luther Dunphy?”

“I am not aware of Luther Dunphy’s schedule. It was my impression—though I didn’t think much about it, at the time—that most of the protesters arrived at varying times, and some days, some did not come at all. There were protesters more likely to come in the morning, and protesters more likely to come in the afternoon. Sometimes, they ceased coming altogether—they never returned. If someone was missing, I would not be likely to notice—I didn’t keep track in that way.”

“Did Luther Dunphy often miss a vigil?”

“I think he is a carpenter, or a roofer. He has a demanding job. He may have been working part-time . . . None of this I knew at the time, but I have read in the paper since his arrest. I’ve tried to explain, I did not know the schedule of any of my fellow protesters.”

“Did you speak often to Luther Dunphy, though you claim not to have known his name?”

“No. I did not speak often to him.”

“And why did you speak with him on this particular occasion?”

“I think he spoke to me . . . He just fell to talking, as people do. We are bound by a common interest for which we feel strongly—‘defending the defenseless.’”

“Can you elaborate, Mr. Stockard, what you told Luther Dunphy?”

“I might have told him—in reply to his question—that it did seem to be, lately, that Voorhees was arriving earlier than the police guards. I mean, I agreed with his observation. I think that was how it was . . .”

“And what else did you say?”

“What else did I say? I—I don’t know—maybe I mentioned that Voorhees sometimes drove the van himself, and his escort took the passenger’s seat. They came to the Center together most days. But I think that Voorhees didn’t feel the need for an escort—a kind of bodyguard. That’s what we’d heard.”

“And why would anyone on the staff at the Women’s Center require a ‘bodyguard’?”

“They would not. It was all exaggerated, for publicity—that right-to-life protesters were intrusive and violent and that they, the abortionists, had to be protected from them—from us.”

“There is no need for bodyguards? Or law enforcement?”

“Not usually. There is not.”

“But sometimes?”

“Not—often.”

“Really, Mr. Stockard? Since two individuals were killed who’d turned up for work at the Center, by one of your Right-to-Life protesters, it doesn’t seem to you that there is any need?”

“But not usually. Not often . . .”

“Will you answer a little more clearly, whether Luther Dunphy asked you specifically about the time of arrival of Dr. Voorhees, in relationship to the arrival of the police officers?”

“I don’t know what you mean . . .”

“Did Luther Dunphy ask you, or did you volunteer the information?”

Stockard hesitated. His long somber face was damp with perspiration. He was blinking rapidly as if he could not bear to look at the prosecutor; and he could not bring himself to look at Luther Dunphy who was seated only a few yards away.

“I think that it was me—it was I—who asked him. And Luther Dunphy who volunteered the information.”

“But why did he tell you this, if indeed he told you?”

“Why? I don’t know why . . . We talked about Voorhees, and the Center, and abortions, and the need to stop legalized infanticide, an abomination . . . We talked about many things.”

“But you’ve just said, you rarely talked.”

“Except this one time . . .”

“And what did Luther Dunphy say, after he’d volunteered the information about Voorhees’s arrival?”

“I—I do not recall that he said anything further.”

“He did not say anything further?”

“He did not. Not that I recall.”

“He did not say—‘Voorhees is unprotected then. He could be killed then. There are a few minutes when he is vulnerable—he could be killed.’ But Luther Dunphy did not say that?”

“No! Of course not.”

“And you did not say that?”

“Of course not.”