Did Junior have time to race to his employer’s warehouse, jump into his own pickup truck, then hustle home for the killings? Perhaps, Wag implied, though it wasn’t clear.
For two hours Wag harangued Taggart over the times and distances. Swoboda objected. McDover overruled. The lawyers bickered as tempers rose. Taggart eventually lashed out. Swoboda moved for a mistrial again. The judge asked him to sit down. The jurors were frustrated. The spectators were at first amused, then bored.
Through it all, Junior Mace sat stoically amid the chaos, occasionally shaking his head at the fiction.
10
With the alibis out the window, the defense had nothing left but the defendant himself. Swoboda followed the conventional wisdom of advising Junior against taking the stand, but Junior would have none of it. If he was to be given the chance to tell the truth, then he would not be denied.
In a deep, slow voice he measured his words and looked unflinchingly at the jurors. Swoboda lobbed up the easy ones as they covered Junior’s background: education, employment, family, lack of criminal record, no divorces, three children. He loved Eileen, and Son was his closest friend. No, they were not having an affair, and, no, he did not catch them in bed.
He denied owning a handgun and testified that he did not know a single Tappacola who owned one. It was not part of their culture. A few of the men hunted deer for food, but no one in his family did so. He enjoyed a few beers occasionally but did not consider himself a heavy drinker. He and Eileen had never kept alcohol in their home.
He told the story of his people and their deep division over the proposal to build a casino on their land. He and Son had led the opposition to it, and they had won the first election by a narrow margin. The vote split their tribe into bitter camps.
Whoever killed Son and Eileen was now doing a fine job of framing him. Remove Son and remove Junior and the casino would be built.
Wag stood and pleaded, “Objection. Please, Your Honor. Do we have any proof of this? This is a pretty wild theory with nothing to back it up.”
“Agreed. Sustained. Mr. Swoboda, please limit the testimony to something that resembles the facts.”
January 17 had been a typical day for Junior. He made his rounds that morning and had lunch in a country store where he also made a delivery. Around 2:00 p.m., he stopped by Heath’s family’s store, dropped off and picked up ten cylinders of propane, and drove “about a half an hour” to Mr. McGuire’s. He was in no hurry, as always, and drove under the speed limit. He did not detour, did not go home, because there was no reason to do so, and finished his business at Mr. McGuire’s around 3:00 p.m. Afterward, he stopped at two more stores before punching the clock at 4:41. On the drive home, he stopped at one of his favorite bars, said hello to Spike, had a couple of beers, and all was well. After that, he remembered little. He passed out, not from two beers, but from something else, and remembered nothing until he awoke in the hospital.
His voice cracked slightly when he tried to explain what it was like hearing that his wife had been murdered and being told, about an hour later, that he was charged with the murder. Handcuffed, dragged away, driven to jail, thrown in a cell, denied the dignity of attending his wife’s funeral and burial, denied the opportunity to grieve with his children. He had been so traumatized he had trouble talking, eating, and sleeping.
It was a nightmare that would never end.
—
The Son. Patrick Mace, age fourteen, the oldest of Junior’s three children. Because of the gruesomeness of much of the testimony, young Patrick had been kept out of the courtroom until today. His younger siblings would see none of the trial.
Patrick had been the first one home from school, the first one in the house, the unlucky soul who stumbled upon the bodies and the unspeakable crime scene. He did not remember making the 911 call; he remembered nothing. The first deputy found him lying on the front porch, curled in the fetal position, shaking and unable to speak or walk. Patrick had spent two nights in a hospital and was still seeing a counselor.
Not surprisingly, Wag Dunlap wanted to call the kid as one of the State’s opening witnesses. Slay the jury right off the bat with the kid weeping and bawling and unable to continue. Swoboda objected but McDover said yes. Fortunately, the Mace family resisted so fiercely that Wag backed off.
As Patrick watched his father fight for his life, he battled his own emotions. Tears flooded his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He wiped them with his sleeves and tried not to look at Uncle Wilton seated next to him. Losing his mother was incomprehensible. Losing his father would be the end of the world.
Wilton had explained the truth. He knew his father was innocent.
11
In his closing argument Wag Dunlap decided to trash the victims. If Son and Eileen were not having a fling, then what the hell were they doing? Can you think of another good reason why Son, who knew Eileen very well, would drop by her house around 2:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, with Junior at work and the kids at school? There was no other reason, and the defendant, who has proven to have a rather vivid imagination, has been unable to pull one out of the air.
What should be obvious, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is actually quite obvious. They were having a fling, and Junior either knew about it or was highly suspicious. He timed his movements almost to perfection, giving himself a brief but plausible window to zip by his house and see if Son’s pickup was in the driveway.
And it was! His worst suspicions were true.
He caught them, killed them, did what he had to do, and got on with his propane deliveries. Later, when reality set in, he got drunk, got caught, and showed no remorse for the killings, at least not in jail.
—