A Book of American Martyrs(96)
“I’m—free? I can go home?”
“No, Luther. You’re still in custody. You’ll be returned to detention. But you were not convicted—that’s the good news.”
He’d known that. Of course, he could not be freed.
He had surrendered his soul to the Lord, he could not now take it back. Never could he be an ordinary man again, husband, father, son and in all these found wanting.
“Very, very good news, Luther. It will take a while—for me—for the news to sink in . . .”
Luther understood now that his own lawyer believed that he was guilty. In the courtroom there had been a game of some kind, in which the opposing lawyers contended, the prosecution with conspicuously more assistants than the defense, and so, though badly outmatched, Luther’s lawyer had not lost. That to him was triumph—he had not lost.
The lawyer was a young man in his early thirties with prominent gums, a way of smiling that suggested the nervous smile of a dog, and something of a dog’s craven eagerness.
“I’ll file to dismiss the charges, Luther. That’s the next step.”
“But I can’t go home? Isn’t there—bail?”
“I’ll apply for bail. But I wouldn’t count on it, since the charge is two counts of homicide.”
Two counts. Homicide. Hearing this Luther would hear nothing else clearly.
He wanted to protest as he’d protested many times: he had not shot the second man. From the first he had denied that he had shot Timothy Barron but they persisted in accusing him. It was a cover-up for the Broome County deputies who’d shot Barron by mistake—he knew. That could be the only explanation. All of the witnesses had lied including even—(he could not comprehend this and so had given up thinking about it for the wisdom of Jesus is, it is to no purpose to provoke great anguish in your heart if you are powerless to overcome it)—the ex-priest Stockard who was his friend. And even Reverend Dennis who had intervened with him, with Jesus, had not seemed to believe him, he had not killed Barron. This great injustice no one seemed to care about not even his lawyer who spoke now heedlessly and excitedly rejoicing in the good news of the mistrial.
The jurors had not thought he’d killed the men. Or rather, they had not thought that Luther Dunphy was a killer. That was the meaning of the “mistrial”—they had rejected the prosecution’s case against him; yet, the judge had not freed him. It was confusing to him, though he did not truly wish to be free, that he was not now free.
Later it would be explained to him: two jurors had held out against the other ten jurors who had voted guilty. This would seem to him the unmistakable will of the Lord, intervening in the way of grace.
“Luther! Luther!”—Edna Mae’s hoarse voice was startling to him, in this place amid strangers.
He felt an instant’s fear for her—that his dear wife who had been unwell, whose graying hair was disheveled and whose clothing was loose and shapeless on her as the clothing of a much larger woman, would be exposed to the eyes of mocking strangers at a time when Luther could not protect her as a husband should protect his wife.
“Luther! Thank God.”
It was not allowed, or should not have been allowed—for the defendant was to be led from the courtroom by Broome County deputies, as usual; but there came Edna Mae weeping with happiness, and the uniformed men stepped aside, that Luther Dunphy might embrace the sobbing woman, who clung to him murmuring words of such joy and heartbreak, he could not absorb them; for it seemed too that Edna Mae must have thought he would be freed, and return home to them—if not at this hour, then soon.
Poor Edna Mae!—her hair felt brittle, and smelled of something like ashes. Her clothing smelled of her anxious unwashed female body.
And there came his beloved son Luke, taller than Luther recalled, whose sharp-boned boy’s face too shone with tears; and his daughter Dawn, who was not crying, but rather laughing with a kind of animal joy, harsh, jubilant. Her small deep-set eyes gleamed like a lynx’s eyes, in sudden light.
Luther’s other children, the younger children, he did not see. For a moment he could barely recall them. A girl, a boy . . . A baby girl. Increase and multiply had been the commandment, he had obeyed.
Now Luther Dunphy too was weeping, awkwardly stooping to embrace wife, son, daughter until the deputies tugged at him—“Mr. Dunphy, time to go”—and led him away.
And outside in a light-falling snow at the rear of the courthouse they were awaiting him—members of the St. Paul Missionary congregation, his brothers and sisters of the Army of God bearing picket signs, supporters of Luther Dunphy barred from the courtroom cheering him now as one might cheer a soldier returning victorious from war—“Luther! Luther! God bless you, Luther!” In the street were TV camera crews, and cries of reporters—“Luther? Luther look here”—flashes from cameras borne by individuals who darted close, risking the ire of police officers shouting angrily at them to get back. “Luther! Are you surprised by the ‘jury deadlock’? Is this a ‘sign from Jesus’—you will be found not guilty? Luther can you smile?” So astonished by this attention which was like a great blinding beam of light pulsing in his face, Luther halted blinking in confusion even as the now-impatient deputies urged him forcibly into the gray van bearing on its sides in black letters the humbling words Broome County Men’s Detention.