Montana Gundown by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2012-01-24T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The crowd filed into the town hall in an orderly fashion, probably because Marshal Trask was standing beside the door glaring and holding the shotgun. Nobody in his right mind was going to argue with a Greener.

The chairs in the hall were arranged in two sections with an aisle between them. When Baldridge, with Laura on his arm, took a seat on the front row of the section to the left, Brady Morgan and his men followed suit, filling the first two rows of that section. Embry and the men from the Boxed E went to the right.

Six chairs stood by themselves along the right-hand wall at the front of the room. The jury would sit there, Frank knew. A table for the judge, with a chair at the end of it for witnesses, faced the audience. A small man with wispy white hair and a round, unlined face, so he looked like a cross between a baby and an old man, emerged from a room at the hall’s rear and came to the table. He wore a black suit and string tie.

From the back of the room, Trask called, “Everybody settle down! All—”

People started to get up. The judge waved them back into their seats.

“This is an inquest, not a trial,” he said. “We don’t have to be too formal.” He picked up a gavel that lay on the desk and rapped it. “Come to order.”

The spectators all settled back in their seats. Judge Woodville sat down behind the table and took a pair of spectacles from his vest pocket. He put them on and peered around the room.

“Madam,” he said as his gaze landed on Laura and stayed there. “You appear to be the only lady in attendance today. Some of the details in the matter at hand may be quite unpleasant. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to withdraw, in order to protect your feminine sensibilities?”

Frank grunted and tried not to grin. He had a hunch Laura wouldn’t react too well to that suggestion.

“With all due respect, Your Honor,” she said, “my sensibilities are quite sturdy, even though they are feminine. So I’ll decline your kind offer.” Then she gave Woodville a dazzling smile that robbed her previous words of any sting. “Though I do so appreciate your chivalrous consideration.”

Woodville glanced down at the papers on the table in front of him, obviously flustered but pleased at the same time.

“As you wish, ma’am.” He straightened the papers, picked them up, and looked them over even though he had almost certainly read them before now. Then he cleared his throat and continued, “We are here to render a verdict as to the cause of death of three individuals, and the appropriateness of same. For that a jury of six good men and true is required.”

The judge picked up the gavel, used it to point out half a dozen townsmen among the spectators, and called their names.

“Line up here in front of me while I question you as to your suitability for this panel,” he told them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.